The name of the dale is old Norse in origin, can be roughly translated as ‘Bildr’s Valley’ and had become known as Bildesdala by the 12th century but no part of it was recorded in the Domesday Survey of 1086 though the nearby vills of Halmebi [Hawnby], Carletun [Carlton in Cleveland], Englebi [Ingleby Greenhow] and Tilstun, now Stilton Farm near Helmsley were all listed. Bildesdala was probably waste and considered to be of no value following the ‘harrying of the north’ by William the Conqueror whom local folklore suggests became lost in the dale and spent an uncomfortable night there with his retinue.
The beautiful dale of Bilsdale is the most westerly of the steep sided dales in the North York Moors National Park and stretches from Clay Bank on the Cleveland escarpment in the north to Newgate Bank in the south, a distance of roughly ten miles. From Chop Gate village where there has been a church for over 900 years Raisdale stretches up to Carlton Bank, dividing the northern end of the dale.
The date of the building of the first church on this site cannot be fully verified but it was certainly here at the beginning of the 12th century and served the community of Bilsdale for at least 750 years before the present church was built in 1851.
