Holme-on-Spalding-Moor, North Yorkshire
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Holme-on-Spalding-Moor (also rarely Holme-upon-Spalding-Moor) is a small village in North Yorkshire County, England, between York and Market Weighton.
The town is named for its location on the Spalding Moor. In very early censuses of England (before the 16th C.) the town was sometimes listed as Holme, Spalding Moor, Yorkshire, though there is little evidence of any other towns scattered across the moor at that or any time. Spalding Moor was then a marsh dominated by a single hill, or holme, upon which was built a small church in the 13th C. The village was built on the holme around the church, hence the name.
Spalding Moor now is lightly cultivated and has been largely tamed. The moor was the site of a Royal Air Force station, RAF Holme-on-Spalding-Moor, which was active during World War II and for several years thereafter as bomber facility, being officially closed in 1954 and transferred to the U.S. Air Force. The USAF moved out in 1957, and the field was sold to a private firm.
It continued in private hands until 1984, when its last tenant, British Aerospace, moved out. It was in a rather dilapidated condition by that time, and upon its closing several of the more notable buildings were destroyed and the runways removed. The hangars and several other buildings remain and are used by a variety of industrial and agricultural tenants, though all are in various states of disrepair.