WHY is there free parking in the centre of Stokesley? Well, it all goes back to the town hall, the story of which was told in the D&S Times of September 18.

In 1919, the Lord of Stokesley Manor, Heneage Wynne Finch, put his estate up for sale – it included 14 farms, a water mill and the Manor House. The town hall, built by a previous lord of the manor in 1853, was bought by local solicitor John Page Sowerby and presented to the parish council in memory of Stokesley men who had died in the First World War.

At the same time, Mr Wynne Finch gave the council “all the wastes or waste ground belonging appertaining or appurtenant to the Manor of Stokesley...Secondly all that Market....with the tolls....and yearly fair...and all the tolls.”

Waste land was usually the lord of the manor’s land which was not the best for growing crops. His tenants were allowed to graze their animals or grow fuel on the waste land.

In Stokesley, the waste was around the town hall. It is now overseen by the Manorial Land Trust which, as the 1919 document suggests, controls the markets, the annual fair and the car parking which takes place on the waste.