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About the Parish  

The village of Scruton lies approximately half way between Bedale and Northallerton, the county town of North Yorkshire, on the A684.

Scruton is a small rural community of approximately 180 homes, several of which are scattered outside the core of the village in farms and cottages. The population is currently c.650 comprising mostly retired people and families of school and working age.

The village has very ancient origins, first recorded in the Doomsday book and historians can trace its beginnings to Anglo-Saxon and Viking times when the village ('the tun') was renamed after its Viking lord 'Scurfa'. Over the years Scurfa's Tun became Scurveton and finally Scruton.

Scruton is a Thankful Village, one of only 41 English villages whose young men all returned home from the First World War. We now have a plaque to this effect which was dedicated on Remembrance Sunday 2005, and also commemorates the two Scruton men killed in action in the Second World War

Much of the village belonged to the Gale family, and then passed by marriage to the Coores. In the 1950's, Scruton woodlands and farms, its park and Hall, were sold as part of the winding up of the Coore estate. The old Hall was eventually demolished and, without the centrality of the ancient church of St Radegund, situated on the village green, the village may have lost its heart.

Present day residents of Scruton enjoy Scurfa's legacy of a small tightly-knit and caring community well-sited for good local junior and secondary schools, easy access to main road and rail links, proximity to the market towns of Bedale, Leyburn, Richmond, Ripon, Masham, Thirsk and Northallerton and within a 30 mile radius of larger business and commercial centres of Teesside, Darlington, Harrogate and York.

Property in the village comprises a pleasant mix of old cottages and farms, small cul-de-sac developments of 3 and 4 bedroomed accommodation and a small number of housing association houses and bungalows for families and older residents. Employment in the village includes mixed agriculture with an increasing range of skilled craftsman and artisan businesses, plus the ever-rising numbers of residents whose homes provide their employment base.

Scruton Parish Council, comprising 5 councillors from the village, has sponsored this webpage. Any enquiries relating to Scruton village life should be addressed in the first instance to David Carter, Clerk to the Parish Council, using the form at the bottom of this page).

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