Little Driffield

Little Driffield
St Mary's Church, Little Driffield
Little Driffield  Little Driffield shown within the East Riding of Yorkshire
OS grid reference	TA009577
Civil parish	Driffield
Unitary authority	East Riding of Yorkshire
Ceremonial county	East Riding of Yorkshire
Region	Yorkshire and the Humber
Country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	DRIFFIELD
Postcode district	YO25
Dialling code	01377
Police	Humberside
Fire	Humberside
Ambulance	Yorkshire
EU Parliament	Yorkshire and the Humber
UK Parliament	East Yorkshire
List of places: UK • England • Yorkshire

Little Driffield is a small village in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It is situated on the western outskirts of Great Driffield, to the west of the A614 road and south of the A166 road. Little Driffield forms part of the civil parish of Driffield.

St Mary's Church

King Aldfrith of Northumbria (685 – 705) is supposedly buried in the village church, St. Mary's. However, no evidence of this was found when the nave and chancel were rebuilt and the floor excavated in 1807 (the 14th century tower remained untouched). It was again beautified in the 1890s by architect Temple Moor. Judging by the dates on headstones, the graveyard was extended east at that time.

Public houses

The village once boasted two public houses. The Downe Arms, named after the lady of the manor, became a restaurant and is now a private house. The Rose and Crown had a large pond and green. The pond was reduced in size by around half when Brendan Green was built – around 1969. The majority of the green is now walled in and privately owned, belonging to one of the most prominent houses in the village – Springfield House, (now Church House) which lost its iron railings, along with those from the churchyard, to help the war effort. The chapel built in 1878 was demolished recently and replaced by a house and the village school likewise around 40 years ago. Elmswell Beck runs through the southern edge of the village and joins with Little Driffield Beck (from the pond). These are tributaries of the River Hull.

Horsefair Lane

Horsefair Lane was for many years the home and factory of clothing manufacturers, Dewhirst's. The factory later became Arcadia Clothing which closed some years ago. The site is now occupied by an industrial unit and 6 new houses. The last horse fair was held in 1918.

New housing

The village has seen a lot of new housing since the 1990s, notably Londsborough Court – previously a milk tanker storage yard and many years ago an abattoir which adjoined Brendan Green, previously the site of a tannery. There were two tanneries in the village in the 19th and early 20th centuries, the other was on the site of Church Walk,(which incidentally is nowhere near the church), previously a pig farm, also six new houses (2006) up Horsefair Lane, two just built (2006) next to the Rose and Crown and several individual ones dotted about.

The A166 which ran through the village is now a lot quieter since the construction of the town bypass, (part of the A614) around 1982, there is still a bit of through traffic going to the nearby Kelleythorpe Industrial Estate about half a mile south.

Church Lane

References

• Gazetteer — A–Z of Towns Villages and Hamlets. East Riding of Yorkshire Council. 2006. p. 7.