Wetwang

Wetwang is a Yorkshire Wolds village and civil parish in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England, 6 mi west of Driffield on the A166 road.

At the 2011 census, it had a population of 761, an increase on the 2001 census figure of 672.

Name
There are two interpretations of the name. One is from the Old Norse vaett-vangr, or 'field for the trial of a legal action'. Another theory is that it was the "Wet Field" compared to the nearby dry field at Driffield.

The name is jokingly defined in The Meaning of Liff by Douglas Adams as meaning "a moist penis". In some varieties of English, wang is a slang term for penis, although this sense of the word is not recorded in the Oxford English Dictionary. The name Wetwang has frequently been noted on lists of unusual place names.

History
The village is known for its Iron Age chariot burial cemetery at Wetwang Slack, and it has been speculated that the unlocated Romano-British town of Delgovicia may have been at what is now Wetwang.

Before the Norman Conquest (TRE) Ealdraed held Wetwang, and it was worth £4 per year in rent. The village is mentioned twice in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Wetuuangha. The lesser mention simply records its existence: "In Wetwang the archbishop $13 1/2$ carucates". The mention is under "Warter Hundred" on original folio 381V: East Riding. Earlier in the Domesday Book, there is a fuller description (Folio 302V: Yorkshire) within the listing of the land of the Archbishop of York:"In Wetwang there are $13 1/2$ carucates to the geld, and there could be 7 ploughs. Archbishop Ealdraed held this as 1 manor. Now Archbishop Thomas has it and it is waste. TRE worth £4. This manor is 2 leagues long and $1 1/2$ broad" A carucate is the area of land a man with 8 oxen can plough in a season, sometimes cited as around 120 acres. In Wetwang there were $13 1/2$ of them available for the tax take ("geld"). A "plough" was a carucate which was being ploughed, rather than grazed or fallow. A league is around 3 miles. After the conquest, Wetwang was waste land held by Archbishop Thomas.

St Nicholas's Church is of Norman origin and was restored between 1845 and 1902. In 1966, the church was designated a Grade II* listed building. It is on the Sykes Churches Trail devised by the East Yorkshire Churches Group. The church has a ring of three bells (tenor in A), the oldest of which (the tenor) dates from c. 1450.

Wetwang was once known for its black swans, after which the village pub, the Black Swan, is named.



Public transport
Until 1950, the village was served by Wetwang railway station, on the Malton to Driffield Line, but this line has closed. The village is now served by an infrequent East Yorkshire Motor Services bus.

Honorary mayor
Richard Whiteley of the Channel 4 quiz show Countdown held the honorary title Mayor of Wetwang from 1998 until his death in 2005. On 25 June 2006, local weather forecaster Paul Hudson from BBC Look North was invested as Whiteley's successor.