The parish of Rise is situated in what was once the wapentake of Holderness, North division, part of the historical East Riding of Yorkshire (see maps in Introduction). Its boundaries remained unchanged after the 1832 parish boundary changes. It lies in a relatively well wooded area of Holderness, its name deriving from “Risun”, the plural form of the Old English “hris” meaning brushwood. Boulder clay covers most of the area but deposits of sand and gravel help to produce a broad band of higher ground , which runs from north to south through the centre of the parish, providing the village of Rise with its site. Lower ground is found in the east and west and also to the south, where the land falls towards the valley of Lambwath stream, one of two streams which drain the area, both of which were recorded as insufficient in 1367.

Rise was the scene of an episode in a lengthy bloodfeud that started in c1016 with the murder of Uhtred, Earl of Northumbria, by Thurbrand the Hold, apparently at the instigation of King Cnut, at the time king of England. Uhtred’s son Ealdred then killed Thurbrand, but Ealdred and Thurbrand’s son Carl entered into a sworn brotherhood and vowed to go on a pilgrimage to Rome together, which should have put an end to the matter. They were to sail from one of the harbours in Holderness but were held up by storms at sea. Eventually they gave up waiting and repaired to the manor house at Rise which was held by Carl’s family and where they had a house. There are earthworks called Mote Hill on Rise estate where a house once stood (see 1852 map of Rise below), and this is believed to be where Carl lavishly entertained Ealdred. However, in the days that followed, Rise would become the scene of the third murder in the cycle of the feud, for it was in Rise Wood that Carl killed his sworn brother Ealdred. This occurred in 1038 and the spot was marked by a small stone cross but, like much of the woodland, it is no longer standing today. The bloodfeud finally came to an end when Waltheof, the grandson of Ealdred, massacred most of Carl’s sons and grandsons at their family estate of Settrington in c1073-74.

Domesday records that there were two manors in Rise, one of which was held before 1066 by Carl’s son Canute, whose life was spared at Settrington “because of his innate goodness”. After the Conquest Drogo de la Beuvrière, a companion of William the Conqueror, was granted all the lands in Holderness not in the hands of the church, including this manor and, as such, he was its tenant in chief. Drogo’s subtenant was Franco de Fauconberg whose family held it until 1372, when Sir Thomas Fauconberg sold it to Sir John Neville. The Nevilles, an ancient Durham family, retained possession until Richard Neville, earl of Warwick and Salisbury, the “king maker”, had his estates seized by the crown after his death in 1471 and partitioned in 1475, when Rise and other Yorkshire manors were assigned to his son-in-law, Richard Plantagenet, duke of Gloucester, later Richard III. The crown retained Rise until 1628 and in c1650 it came into the possession of the Welsh Bethell family (originally ap Ithell), who had moved to the East Riding from Herefordshire in the late 16th century. Practically all of the estate belonged to Sir Hugh Bethell at the time of the 1660 enclosure and the family still retained ownership of most of Rise parish in 1995. A second manor at Rise was in the possession of the canons of Beverley Minster under the Archbishop of York before 1066 and remained in the same hands after the Conquest, by which time it had been reduced to waste.

A manor house was recorded in the early 14th century, and the medieval house of the Fauconbergs has been identified as lying between Mote Hill and the church in an area called Blackhall. Sir Hugh Bethell had a 13 hearth house in 1672, and in 1716 the manor house stood on the site of the later Rise Hall, east of the church. A century later the buildings of Rise village lay along two streets, one leading east from the church past the manor house to join the second, longer street, which was aligned north-south. William Bethell evidently took exception to living in close proximity to the villagers of Rise and in 1774 decided to make major changes to the layout of his estate. He demolished all the buildings lying along the two streets, leaving only the church, its yard and the rectory. At the same time he had the east-west street diverted to a more northerly course, away from his manor house, while the north-south road gradually disappeared. In this way he was able to enlarge the grounds around his house and extend the park. The village was rebuilt some 200 metres to the north, where half a dozen cottages on smallholdings and a school comprised New Rise by the 1850s. In the meantime, between 1815 and 1820, Richard Bethell had extensively remodelled the manor house. The present house is in the Greek-revival style and is faced with fine ashlar; the plan is irregular, no doubt to accommodate the pre-existing fabric.

During the Second World War the manor house served as headquarters for the operation of searchlight batteries in the local area and accommodated the officers manning them. The Bethells had given up the house by 1946, when they bought the former rectory, later called Rise Park. By this time their former seat, thereafter Rise Hall, had been let to the Canonesses Regular of St. Augustine, who ran it as a Roman Catholic boarding and day school for girls until 1989 and in 1995 were using the house as an occasional educational centre. However, by 1989 Rise Hall stood empty and had fallen into disrepair; it was bought in 2001 by TV personality Sarah Beeny and her husband, who set about restoring it with the intention of making it into a family home and wedding venue. The venture was a success and continues to be today under the supervision Helen and Daniel Gill, who had been in charge of catering and events for nine years before becoming the new owners in 2019. Rise Hall, stables and coach house are all listed buildings.

A church has existed in Rise since the early 1200s and a rector was mentioned in the mid 13th century, but later rectors served various parishes alongside Rise and did not live at the rectory. This goes some way to explain why the church was a “small, dilapidated, ancient structure” by the 19th century and why Richard Bethell demolished it and built a new one in its place from 1844 to 1845. The medieval church of St. Mary comprised a chancel and a nave with a south porch and a western bell turret. A round-headed doorway in the north side of the nave suggests that it was of 12th century origin although most of the church’s features are said to be 14th century. The new church of All Saints was built of fine ashlar in a plain 13th century style and comprises a chancel with a north vestry, a nave with a south porch, and a west tower with a broach spire. Some 13th century stonework was reused in the chancel arch. Both the church and its yard, which was extended in 1845, contain many memorials to the Bethell family.

John Pickering of the 19th generation of the Pickerings of Holderness was a shoemaker from Hedon. He evidently found work in Rise, as twelve of his fifteen children were baptised there, their surname being recorded as Puckering. The parish registers do not record the baptisms of his last three children, but they bear witness to the deaths in infancy of six older ones. The surviving children all moved away from Rise, dispersing over the rest of Holderness and Harthill.

Sources:
https://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/YKS/ERY/Rise
https://intel-hub.eastriding.gov.uk/parish-profile/#/view-report/bd6a0cb7f85a46998f874a42bfd0dc8e/PP118
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rise,_East_Riding_of_Yorkshire
https://opendomesday.org/place/TA1441/rise
A History of the County of York East Riding: Volume 7: Holderness Wapentake, Middle and North Divisions: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=16157&strquery=Rise
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uhtred_of_Bamburgh
Bloodfeud: Murder and Revenge in Anglo-Saxon England, p.119-122: https://archive.org/details/bloodfeudmurderr0000flet_s2h2/page/119
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rise_Hall
Rise Hall: https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1161753?section=official-list-entry
Rise Hall stables and coach house: https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1083420?section=official-list-entry
http://www.risehall.com
https://www.dine.co.uk