17/03/2026
Field 84 has been in the spotlight recently, and we thought people would be interested to know more about its history. Maybe you can help us fill in the gaps!
You may well have walked through Field 84 many times. This field is the one just past Bosun’s campsite, along the riverside path. Today it is one of the few wooded areas around Bishopthorpe.
The field’s boundaries go back to the Enclosure Award of 1760 when Bishopthorpe Ings were ‘enclosed’, or divided into parcels under private ownership. Field 84 was glebe land, which was land owned by the parish church to provide an income for the vicar. Back then, like the rest of the Ings, it was managed as hay meadow, providing a reliable annual income (‘ings’ is a Norse word meaning damp meadows). 84 refers to the number it was assigned on Ordnance Survey maps, but some residents still know it as the ‘Glebe Field’.
We don’t know when the field was sold by the church, but it was referred to as Field 84 by 1982. We know that in the 1980s the field was owned by Acaster Malbis Boat Club who ran their club from a barge on the moorings. We understand that the barge sank, and by 1987 the field had been transferred to Bishopthorpe Parish Council.
In the 1990s, Bishopthorpe Scouts planted the boundary trees, and a few years later there was a community project to plant “Millennium Trees” as part of the national “Trees of Time and Space” initiative. Villagers were encouraged to grow their own trees in pots. During the winter of 1999-2000 twenty-two families planted dozens of trees including apple, oak, holly, ash, beech and chestnut. The vision from the community effort was to create “a lasting legacy, for our villagers to enjoy well after the early millennium years,” and many of those trees are still there today.
If you have any photos or information about the history of Field 84, we would love to hear from you.
