Giggleswick

A Dictionary of British Place Names (2011) contains the entry:

:Giggleswick N. Yorks. Ghigeleswic 1086 (DB). "Dwelling or (dairy) farm of a man called Gikel or Gichel. OE or ME pers. name (probably a short form of the biblical{{sic}} name Judichael) + wīc.{{cite book |last1=Mills |first1=A. D. |title=A Dictionary of British Place-Names |date=2011 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tXucAQAAQBAJ |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=Oxford |isbn=9780199609086 |page=205 |edition=1 Rev}}{{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=195 |edition=4}}

{{main|Giggleswick railway station}}

The village is served by Giggleswick railway station, which provides services to Leeds and to Lancaster and Morecambe. There are five trains a day in each direction, operated by Northern.

Close to the station and opposite the Craven Arms Hotel (formerly the Old Station Inn) is the Plague Stone.{{Cite web |title=Settle Church, Giggleswick Vicars and Their Times |url=http://www.settlechurch.org.uk/giggleswick-vicars-and-their-times.php |website=www.settlechurch.org.uk |access-date=3 May 2017 }}{{Dead link|date=June 2024 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }} This has a shallow trough, which in times of plague was filled with vinegar to sterilize the coins that were left by townspeople as payment for food brought from surrounding farms.{{Cite book |last1=Speight |first1=Harry |title=Craven and the north west Yorkshire highlands |date=1892 |publisher=E Stock |location=London |page=96 |chapter=III; Giggleswick, Stackhouse, Locks |oclc=650329471}} The stone was moved a short distance from its original site when the Settle bypass was built.

The parish church is dedicated to St Alkelda, an obscure Anglo-Saxon saint associated with the North Yorkshire town of Middleham. The building dates mostly from the 15th century, but carved stones discovered during the restoration of 1890–1892 showed that a building existed on the site before the Norman Conquest.{{Cite book |title=The Ancient Parish of Giggleswick |first1=Thomas |last1=Brayshaw |first2 = Ralph M |last2=Robinson|year=1932|publisher=Halton and Co.|location=London}} [http://www.northcravenhistoricalresearch.co.uk OCR copy by North Craven Historical Research] {{Webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080509054449/http://northcravenhistoricalresearch.co.uk/ |date=9 May 2008}} Retrieved 14 November 2012{{rp |222}} It has been classed by English Heritage as a Grade I listed building.{{NHLE |num= 1157303|desc= Church of St Alkelda, Giggleswick|access-date= 21 July 2012}} The restoration, carried out by the Lancaster architects Paley, Austin and Paley, included replacing the roof, removing the gallery, rebuilding the vestry, and reseating, replastering and reflooring the church.{{Citation |last1=Brandwood |first1=Geoff |last2=Austin |first2=Tim |last3= Hughes |first3=John |last4=Price |first4=James |year=2012 |title=The Architecture of Sharpe, Paley and Austin |publication-place=Swindon |publisher= English Heritage |page= 238 |isbn=978-1-84802-049-8}}

• Richard Whiteley of Channel 4's Countdown was a pupil at Giggleswick School.{{Cite news |last1=Barker |first1=Dennis |title=Richard Whiteley |url=https://www.theguardian.com/media/2005/jun/28/broadcasting.channel4 |access-date=3 May 2017 |work=The Guardian |date=27 June 2005}} In his will he left the school £500,000, which was used to build a new theatre named after him.{{Cite news |title=Star's £500,000 theatre boost|url=http://www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/news/3183929.Star_s___500_000_theatre_boost/ |access-date=3 May 2017 |work=Bradford Telegraph and Argus |date=27 June 2008 |language=en}}
• Russell Harty was an English teacher at the same time as Whiteley was a pupil.
• The operatic soprano Sarah Fox was born in the village and attended Giggleswick School.{{Cite news |last1=Moore |first1=Lindsey |title=Top soprano Sarah Fox helps give Craven a voice as part of new community initiative |url=http://www.cravenherald.co.uk/leisure/14520545.Top_soprano_Sarah_Fox_helps_give_Craven_a_voice_as_part_of_new_community_initiative/?ref=rl&lp=2 |access-date=3 May 2017 |work=Craven Herald |date=27 May 2016 |language=en}}
• The Star Wars actor Anthony Daniels also attended Giggleswick School.{{Cite web |title=Giggleswick |url=http://www.yorkshiredales.co.uk/villages/giggleswick/ |website=www.yorkshiredales.co.uk |access-date=3 May 2017}}
• The film and stage actor Clarence Blakiston (1864–1943) was born in Giggleswick, as was Henry Maudsley, the pioneering British psychiatrist, at a farm outside Giggleswick in 1835.
• The Victorian-era actor Sir John Hare was born in the town in 1844.{{Cite book |last1=Howse |first1=Geoffrey |title=The little book of Yorkshire |date=2010 |publisher=History Press |location=Stroud |isbn=978-0-7524-6267-7 |page=57 |chapter=3. High Achievers}}
• Professor Sir Nevill Francis Mott, who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1977, was born in Leeds and brought up in Giggleswick.
• Television chef Susan Brookes is a former resident of the village, having resided there in the 1980s.{{Cite news |date=1986-08-22 |title=Ready to sort out Perth gardeners' problems |page=26 |work=The Perthshire Advertiser, etc. |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/109587987/ready-to-sort-out-perth-gardeners/ |access-date=2022-09-15}}

Giggleswick is notable amongst rock climbers for a limestone crag, retro-bolted with many sports routes during 2005 and 2006. The crag is opposite Settle Golf Club on the B6480, north of Giggleswick.

Cave Ha, hollowed out of the massive cliff of Great Scar limestone, is a large rock shelter. Together with Sewell's Cave, it has produced a large amount of archaeological material, including bones which are 5,600 years old.{{Cite journal|url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/2840911|title=Exploration of Cave Ha, Near Giggleswick, Settle, Yorkshire.|author=Hughes, T. McKenny|year=1874|journal=The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland|volume=3|pages=383–387|doi=10.2307/2840911|jstor=2840911 |url-access=subscription}}{{Cite web|url=https://dalesrocks.org.uk/ribblesdale/geological-processes/cave-formation/giggleswick-scar-caves/|title=The Caves of Giggleswick Scar – Dales Rocks}}{{Cite web|url=http://oldfieldslimestone.blogspot.com/2013/03/prehistoric-three-peaks-part-two-cave.html|title=A Three Peaks Up and Under|first=Stephen|last=Oldfield}}

An episode of the radio comedy The Shuttleworths was set in Giggleswick.{{Cite web |title=Mini-Break in Giggleswick, Series 1, The Shuttleworths – BBC Radio 4 Extra |url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b007k1wl |website=BBC |access-date=4 May 2017}} Comedy writers Ray Galton and Alan Simpson used the town as their emblem of a travelling actor's date with obscurity in Hancock's Half Hour, "The Train Journey" episode, broadcast on 23 October 1959.{{Cite web |title=The Train Journey, Hancock's Half Hour |url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p032khzp |website=BBC |date=23 October 1959 |access-date=4 May 2017}}{{Cite book |last1=Williams |first1=Michael |title=On the slow train again |date=2012 |publisher=Arrow |location=London |isbn=978-0-09955-285-7 |page=73 |edition=Updated |chapter=4. The 10:34 from Morecambe – a Brief Encounter with the "secret" train over the Pennines}} Les Dawson did the same in 1975, in Dawson's Weekly.{{Cite web |title=Dawson's Weekly |url=http://www.dvdcompare.net/review.php?rid=906 |website=www.dvdcompare.net |access-date=4 May 2017 |language=en}} In 1989, the TV series Capstick's Law, focusing on a family law firm in the 1950s, used Russell Harty's old cottage as a venue.{{Cite news |title=Craven through the years |url=http://www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/news/8074693.Craven_through_the_years/?ref=arc |access-date=3 May 2017 |work=Bradford Telegraph and Argus |date=11 August 1998}} The TV series 24seven was filmed at Giggleswick School.{{Cite news |title=From the archives |url=http://www.cravenherald.co.uk/nostalgia/nostalgia_pick/9565128.From_the_archives/ |access-date=4 May 2017 |work=Craven Herald |date=1 March 2012 |language=en}}

Among few observers of a 24-second solar eclipse in 1927 were members of the Astronomer Royal's expedition to Giggleswick.{{Cite news |last1=Mee |first1=Arthur |author-link=Arthur Mee |title=Wonders of the Great Eclipse |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/2041046/wonders_of_the_great_eclipse/ |work=The Winnipeg Tribune |date=10 September 1927 |page=44 |via=newspapers.com}}

• Listed buildings in Giggleswick
• Castleberg Hospital

{{Reflist|30em}}

{{Commons category-inline|Giggleswick}}

• {{NHLE |num=1157303 |desc=Church of St Alkelda}}
• {{Official website|https://www.giggleswickparishcouncil.co.uk/|Giggleswick Parish Council official website}}
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20050311233652/http://www.stockdill.freeserve.co.uk/giggleswick/ Yorksview – Giggleswick]
• [http://www.giggleswick-pri.n-yorks.sch.uk Giggleswick Primary School's Website]
• [http://www.giggleswick.org.uk/ Giggleswick School Website]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20080622161048/http://www.hudson-history.co.uk/ Walk book on history of Giggleswick]
• [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01f7sgf3ZS8 Video of the station added]

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Category:Villages in North Yorkshire

Category:Civil parishes in North Yorkshire

Category:Ribblesdale