time of the start of the parish registers in the middle of the
16th century the name Armitstead appears very commonly in and the surrounding
parishes. It is interesting to see that by this time they occupied social
ranks from yeoman (freehold farmers, previously known as franklins) and
clergymen down to paupers. William Ermystead, a canon of St Paul's and
chaplain to Queen Mary Tudor, was the founder of Ermystead's School at
Skipton. He later became vicar of Fryerning in Essex. A grammar school
was founded at Giggleswick in the 16th century and in 1553 the school's
first charter gives Roger Armitstead of Knight Stainforth as one of the
school's first governors. The Revd John Armitstead MA was headmaster of
the school from 1685 to 1712. In the neighbouring parish of Horton-in-Ribblesdale
John Armitstead, a yeoman farmer owning Dubcotesfarm, founded a grammar
school in the eighteenth century. The original building still stands next
to the church, and his table tomb is in the churchyard. When I was there
a few years ago the vicar told me that the endowment still provides a regular
annual contribution to the funds of the village school.

An interesting sidelight on the religious disputes of the time is given
by the following extract from a 1704 report of the monthly meeting of the
Society of Friends (Quakers).

"In or about the year 1652 or 1653, it was so ordered that one of the
messengers of Jesus Christ, named William of Dewsbury, came to a town called
Settle, in the West part of Yorkshire, on a market day, and stood upon
the cross, and proclaimed the terrible day of the Lord, which was