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Cawood (other names: Carwood) is a village and civil parish in North Yorkshire, England that is notable as the location of the Cawood sword.
Historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, Cawood belonged to the Liberty of Cawood, Wistow and Otley. From 1974 to 2023 it was within the district of Selby. Since 1 April 2023 it has been administered by North Yorkshire Council. For elections to the UK Parliament the village is in the Selby constituency, created for the 2024 general election.
According to Edmunds' "History in Names of Places" (London, 1869), the first syllable, Ca-, means a hollow, also a field. Edmunds gives Cawood of Yorkshire as an example. The last syllable -wood, is self-evident. The name, therefore, is a place-name of Anglo-Saxon origin and was first used to describe one who lived in a wooded hollow or field.
In his King's England series, Arthur Mee refers to Cawood as "the Windsor of the North". Cawood was formerly one of the chief places of residence of the Archbishop of York, who had here a magnificent Palace or Castle, in which several of the bishops died. It was obtained for the see of York from King Athelstan, in the 10th century, by Archbishop Wulfstan. The village surrounded its walls. Alexander Nevil, the 45th Archbishop, is said to have bestowed great cost on this palace, and to have adorned it with several new towers. Henry Bowett, the 49th Archbishop, built the great hall; and his successor, Cardinal John Kemp, erected the gatehouse, the ruins of which are all that remain of this once magnificent building.
During the Civil War the castle changed hands. Royalists retook it before Lord Fairfax captured Cawood in the spring of 1644.
In the 1800s Cawood was considered a market and parish-town, "in the wapentake of Barkston-Ash, liberties of St. Peter and Cawood, Wistow, and Otley; 5 miles from Selby, 7½ from Tadcaster, 10 from York, 12 from Pontefract, 186 from London." Cawood being within the Liberty of Cawood, Wistow, and Otley made the village administratively independent from the surrounding West Riding of Yorkshire. In 1864 the Liberty was brought within the jurisdiction of the West Riding following the mechanism provided by the Liberties Act, ending separate quarter sessions. Market was Wednesday, with fairs held on Old May day and on 23 September, and the principal inn was the Ferry House.
The local church, a Royal Peculiar, was a vicarage, dedicated to All Saints, in the deanery of Ainsty (now New Ainsty). Some of the economic changes in the following decades were also due to increased transportation and agricultural mechanization. It remained part of the West Riding of Yorkshire until 1974.
Cawood is south of the point where the River Wharfe flows into the River Ouse which subsequently forms the northern border of the village. Cawood Bridge is the village’s only crossing of the Ouse and opened on 31 July 1872, replacing a long-standing ferry service. Dick Turpin is said to have forded the river when he escaped to York, which lies about ten miles north. The River Ouse used to flood the village regularly in winter. Since the floods of January 1982, whose height is marked on the bridgekeeper's cottage, river defences have been raised so that the fields on the northern side (Kelfield Ings) and the former Ferry Boat Inn, also on the Kelfield side, are now the only areas that flood, even at times of exceptionally high waters, such as in November 2000.
For elections to the UK Parliament the parish is in the Selby constituency, first contested at the 2024 general election. From 2010 to 2024 it was in Selby and Ainsty.
Since 2024 Cawood has formed part of the York and North Yorkshire Combined Authority, a mayoral combined authority created by statutory instrument and launched on 1 February 2024.
Historically, the parish belonged to the Liberty of Cawood, Wistow and Otley, a jurisdiction of the Archbishop of York with its own quarter sessions.
The medieval Bishop Dyke, now a land drain, was originally a navigable canal linking Sherburn in Elmet to the River Ouse. Cawood had a staith that remained in use until the nineteenth century.
The village is surrounded by washlands and low-lying farmland. North of the village, the Ings act as flood storage for the Ouse. During the November 2000 floods, the Environment Agency carried out emergency works at Cawood to prevent the river from breaching its banks. The local gauge station continues to track water levels, recording thresholds that, when crossed, have historically meant flooding for roads and properties nearby.
Following the English Civil War the palace was largely demolished, the remains together with the Castle Garth are designated as a scheduled monument. The scheduled monument includes the palace gardens with five fishponds and a quarry pit, and retains well-preserved below-ground structures from the medieval complex.
The gatehouse is owned by the Landmark Trust, which acquired it in 1985, restored the building and lets it as holiday accommodation. The Trust has carried out repairs to the adjoining banqueting hall, it is kept secure and roofed but remains unused.
The Castle Garth open space is owned by Cawood Parish Council and managed as public open land. Within it, a rectangular inner enclosure of about 1.6 hectares, formerly moated on at least three sides, preserves the plan of an early garden that is probably seventeenth-century or earlier.
Plaques on the bridge record the opening on 31 July 1872 and name Robert Hodgson as engineer, with T. B. Nelson and John Butler as contractors.
Arriva Yorkshire operates a regular bus service between Selby, the village and York via route 42.
When the Cawood, Wistow and Selby Light Railway first opened in 1898, Cawood served as its terminus. On 1 January 1930, passenger services were discontinued, however, a goods service persisted until 1960. The Selby to Cawood branch hosted the North Eastern Railway’s pioneering petrol-electric “autocar” in the early 1900s, when one of the experimental units was transferred to work services on the line.
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