Vol 2, pages 1-100 - My Primitive Methodist Ancestors

92 I'UIMITIVE MKTHODIST CHUKCH.
By the \Voltls we are to understand that well-defined upland tract, which, like a great
crescent of chalk-hills, sweeps round from Flamborough Head to the Humber, and is
bounded on the east by the low ground of Holderness, on the north by
the Vale of
Pickering, and on the west by the Vale of York. From time immemorial Driffield,
planted at the foot of these oolitic uplands, has been the chief town the capital of the
Wolds. With its clear sparkling trout-streams, its flour mills, its clean, pleasant streets,
its air of prosperous comfort, it has yet had a long history. Driffield embalms the
name of l)eira, a subdivision of the ancient kingdom of Northumbrian Alfred of
Northumberland had his castle here, and the Moot Hill is still the name of the
eminence on which the folk-mote assembled, and a tablet in Little Driffield Church
commemorates Alfred's death in 705. Busy and thriving as Driffield is, it still clings
MIDDLE STREET SOUTH,
DRIFFIELD,
to some of the old-world customs. Its parish clerk still rings
the harvest-bell at five
o'clock every morning for twenty-eight days during harvest ;
for the Wold country is
nothing if not agricultural, and Driffield is its emporium.
This interesting district has, from a Primitive Methodist standpoint, been more
fortunate than many other parts of the Connexion, in that its story has been well and
fully told in a work easily accessible. We chiefly confine ourselves, therefore, to the
first missioning of the Wolds and its chief circuit towns, Driffield and Bridlington,
referring our readers to Rev. H. Woodcock's "Primitive Methodism on the Yorkshire
Wolds " for fuller details.
When and by whom was Primitive Methodism introduced into Driffield? Perhaps
we may not be able to arrive at absolute certainty on these points; but there is