Argam

Argam is mentioned in the Domesday Book as being part of the Hundred or Torbar. Torbar was later joined with the hundreds of Burton and Huntou to form the wapentake of Dickering.{{cite web |title=Argam {{!}} Domesday Book |url=https://opendomesday.org/place/TA1171/argam/ |website=opendomesday.org |access-date=12 October 2022}}{{sfn|Allison|1974|p=3}} The parish was bisected along a north-east/south-west axis by Argham Dykes (or Ergham Dykes), a Bronze Age earthwork that extends from Reighton in the north-east, to Rudston in the south west.{{cite web |title=Argham Dikes |url=https://www.heritagegateway.org.uk/Gateway/Results_Single.aspx?uid=f2d4911a-9b1f-4e5a-a88b-dda76dd77e10&resourceID=19191 |website=www.heritagegateway.org.uk |access-date=13 October 2022}} The dyke, which was historically called the Argham Cursus, is now a scheduled monument.{{cite web |title=Genuki: REIGHTON PARISH: Reighton Parish Records Introduction, Yorkshire (East Riding) |url=https://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/YKS/ERY/Reighton/ReightonParishRecordsIntroduction |website=www.genuki.org.uk |access-date=13 October 2022}}{{NHLE|desc=Argam dykes |num=1005234 |grade=|access-date=13 October 2022 }} The dyke is believed to be pre-Roman, however in 1869, some Roman coins were unearthed from the dyke inside a mole-hill, which led to some assuming a Roman-built dyke.{{cite book |last1=Bulmer |first1=T |title=History, topography, and directory of East Yorkshire (with Hull), comprising its ancient and modern history a general view of its physical features |date=1892 |publisher=Bulmer |location=Preston |page=101|oclc=907283886}} Pitt Rivers argues that if you stand on the dyke at Argam, "the whole of the wide extent of country which presents itself to the eye from this point, the whole of the ground appears as if it had been scooped out by nature for the defence of an army facing inland and westwards...."{{cite journal |last1=Rivers |first1=Pitt |author-link=Augustus Pitt Rivers|title=On Excavations in the Earthwork Called Dane's Dyke at Flamborough in October, 1879; and on the Earthworks of the Yorkshire Wolds |journal=The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland |date=1882 |volume=11 |page=456 |doi=10.2307/2841777|jstor=2841777 |url=https://zenodo.org/record/1634018 }}

The parish was listed as having a church (dedicated to St John the Baptist), which was still extant in 1318 according to an ecclesiastical tax record of the Diocese of York.{{sfn|Beresford|1963|p=313}} In 1115, Walter de Gant, granted some land in the parish, and all the chapels of Hunmanby, to the order at Bardney Abbey.{{sfn|Allison|1974|p=7}} However, like the village, the church building has been demolished, but the font, described as a "rough bowl", was moved into the Church of St Nicholas in Grindale.{{cite web |title=Genuki: ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY Yorkshire (East Riding) |url=https://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/YKS/ERY/Extraparochial/ChurchCol_Ergham |website=www.genuki.org.uk |access-date=13 October 2022}}{{cite book |last1=Pevsner |first1=Nikolaus |title=Yorkshire : York and the East Riding |date=2005 |orig-date=1972 |publisher=Yale University Press |location=London |isbn=0300095937 |page=447 |edition=2}} Whilst the location of the village can be identified from the outlines of the building walls in the ground, the exact location of the church is undetermined.{{cite web |title=Argam |url=https://www.heritagegateway.org.uk/Gateway/Results_Single.aspx?uid=81366&resourceID=19191 |website=www.heritagegateway.org.uk |access-date=18 October 2022}} Because the village of Argam had a church, the name of the area persisted beyond the destruction of the dwellings. Other lost Medieval settlements, lost their village or parish names if they did not have a church.{{cite book |editor1-last=Beresford |editor1-first=Maurice |editor2-last=Hurst |editor2-first=J. |title=Deserted medieval villages: studies; |date=1971 |publisher=Lutterworth Press |location=London |isbn=0718813731 |page=52}} The rights of the clergy in the parish were known to have been severely curtailed by 1632, by which time, no buildings existed in Argam village. The Archbishop of York left the decision of whether to hold religious services in the parish or not, to the incumbent vicar. One did exercise this right, preaching an open-air sermon on the site of the village in 1743.{{sfn|Allison|1974|p=8}}

Historically, the parish, and village or Argam, led to the surname Ergome, such as John of Ergome, who was a renowned scholar and Augustinian friar who studied at Bologna. Ergome came from a distinguished East Riding family.{{cite ODNB|first=Michael J.|last=Curley|title=John of Bridlington [St John of Bridlington, John Thwing]|id=14856|date=23 September 2004}} The parish and village have been recorded as being Ergone, Ergum, Erghum, Herghum, Ereghom, and Arholme. The name derives from Old Norse meaning At the shielings.{{cite book |last1=Smith |first1=A. H. |title=Place-names of East Riding of Yorkshire and York |date=1970 |orig-date=1937|publisher=Cambridge University Press |location=Cambridge |isbn=0-521-04907-5 |page=108}}{{cite book |last1=Ekwall |first1=Eilert |author-link=Eilert Ekwall |title=The concise Oxford dictionary of English place-names |date=1960 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=Oxford |oclc=1228215388 |page=12 |edition=4}} Argam covered approximately {{convert|500|acre}}, being some {{convert|5.5|mi}} north-west of Bridlington, near to the old road from Bridlington to Malton.{{cite book |last1=Lewis |first1=Samuel |title=A topographical dictionary of England : comprising the several counties, cities, boroughs, corporate and market towns, parishes, and townships |date=1848 |publisher=Lewis |location=London |page=70|oclc=1157940821}} The village was de-populated by end of the Middle Ages, possibly for sheep-farming, which was the main use of the area listed in the Domesday Book. Argam village does not appear in taxation records after the 15th century.{{#tag:ref|The land in and around Argam was owned by the order at Bardney Abbey. A document from 1632 of Latin inscription declares the land abandoned.{{sfn|Beresford|1963|p=99}}|name=Abandoned village|group=note}}{{sfn|Allison|1974|p=7}} Between 1801 and 1901, the population, which was scattered across the remaining homesteads in the parish, remained static numbering between 20 and 40 people.{{cite book |last1=Allison |first1=K. J. |title=The East Riding of Yorkshire landscape |date=1976 |publisher=Hodder & Stoughton |location=London |isbn=0340158212|at=plate 14}}{{sfn|Allison|1974|p=6}} The census of 1901 details 40 people living in the parish (which had also grown to an area of {{convert|559|acre}}). The 40 people living in the parish were distributed across only six households or dwellings.{{sfn|Beresford|1963|p=330}}{{cite book |editor1-last=Page |editor1-first=William |title=The Victoria history of the county of York. vol 3 |date=1907 |publisher=Constable & Co |location=London |page=488|oclc=500092527}} On 1 April 1935, the parish was dissolved, and the area subsumed into the parish of Grindale, which still exists as an area in the East Riding of Yorkshire.{{cite web |title=Bridlington Registration District |url=https://www.ukbmd.org.uk/reg/districts/bridlington.html |website=www.ukbmd.org.uk |access-date=13 October 2022}} The last population census of the parish was conducted in 1931, and recorded 34 people.{{cite web |title=Administrative unit Argam AP/CP/Ch Parish-level Unit |url=https://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/unit/10389124/cube/TOT_POP |website=visionofbritain.org.uk |access-date=13 October 2022}}

The remains of the village can be found at two grid coordinates: {{Ordnance Survey coordinates|TA112710|TA112710}}{{cite book |editor1-last=Beresford |editor1-first=Maurice |editor2-last=Hurst |editor2-first=J. |title=Deserted medieval villages: studies; |date=1971 |publisher=Lutterworth Press |location=London |isbn=0718813731 |page=207}} and {{Ordnance Survey coordinates|TA113713|TA113713}}.{{sfn|Beresford|1963|p=393}}

{{reflist|group="note"}}

{{reflist}}

• {{cite book |editor1-last=Allison |editor1-first=K. J. |title=A history of the county of York, East Riding, Volume II |date=1974 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=London |isbn=0-19-722738-4}}
• {{cite book |last1=Beresford |first1=Maurice Warwick |title=The lost villages of England |date=1963 |orig-date=1954 |publisher=Lutterworth Press |location=London|oclc=1194441244}}

• [https://www.yas.org.uk/Collections/Aerial-photograph-Collections Aerial image of the deserted village]

Category:Former civil parishes in the East Riding of Yorkshire

Category:Deserted medieval villages in the East Riding of Yorkshire