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Helmsley is a market town and civil parish in the Ryedale district of North Yorkshire, England. Historically part of the North Riding of Yorkshire, the town is located at the point where Rye Dale leaves the moorland and joins the flat Vale of Pickering.
It is situated on the River Rye on the A170 road, 14 miles (23 km) east of Thirsk, 13 miles (21 km) west of Pickering and some 24 miles (39 km) due north of York. The southern boundary of the North York Moors National Park passes through Helmsley along the A170 road so that the western part of the town is within the National Park.
Archaeological discoveries indicate that the area around Helmsley was first settled in around 3,000 BC and small farming communities existed here throughout the Neolithic, Bronze and Iron Ages and into Roman times. Finds of beehive querns confirm local agriculture and the milling of grain since at least the Iron Age. There are also reports of finds of Roman pottery and a second-century Roman coin.
The ancient settlement, whose Old English name was Elmeslac, pre-dates the Domesday Book. It means ‘Helm’s forest clearing’ and indicates the nature of the landscape at that time.Vikings also left their mark in the Old Norse, "gate" ending of the names of many of the streets. The ownership of much of the town and its surrounding land has changed hands only twice since the Norman Conquest. After the conquest it was governed within the wapentake of Maneshou in the North Riding of Yorkshire, held by William the Conqueror’s half brother the Count of Mortain; land to the west of Helmsley was a royal deer park. The ancient pollarded oak trees in Duncombe Park date from this period and the park is now a national nature reserve. In about 1100 the estate passed to Walter Espec, founder of Rievaulx Abbey. Walter Espec’s heirs were the eldest surviving sons of his three sisters and the Helmsley properties devolved upon Robert De Ros, the son of the youngest sister, Adeline. In 1191 Robert de Ros granted Helmsley its Borough Charter, which established it as the market town.
