Wensley, North Yorkshire
Wensley is a small village and civil parish in the Richmondshire district of North Yorkshire, England. It consists of a few homes and holiday cottage, an inn, a pub and a historic church. It is situated on the A684 road and approximately south-west of the market town of Leyburn. The River Ure passes through the village.
Wensley gives its name to the dale Wensleydale.
The etymology of the name ultimately originates from a compound of an Old English form of the god Woden.
For a century after its charter in 1202, Wensley had the only market in the dale and this continued into the 16th century. Plague struck Wensley in 1563, some surviving villagers fled to Leyburn, but the village recovered a century later when Charles Paulet built Bolton Hall in 1678 and became Duke of Bolton. In fact, Bolton Hall, is from the heart of Wensley, near Preston-under-Scar, Richmondshire; it is a rebuild after a fire in 1902.
Wensley's Holy Trinity Church dates to 1300 and is a Grade I listed building. It is featured as the wedding venue of James and Helen Herriot in the British television series All Creatures Great and Small, in the episode "The Last Furlong".
Wensley's railway station is now closed. It was situated to the north between Wensley and Preston-under-Scar, on the Wensleydale Railway line which still passes the village.
Leyburn Old Glebe nature reserve lies about east of the village.
