Roofers in Driffield

The roofs of Driffield

Driffield's name first appears in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle recording that King Aldfrith of Northumbria died here on 14 December 705, and the settlement is recorded again in the Domesday Book of 1086; the name is thought to mean "dirty", or manured, field. A Bronze Age burial mound outside the town, excavated in the nineteenth century, produced a knife, a dagger, a beaker and a greenstone wrist-guard now in the British Museum, and a motte-and-bailey castle once stood at Moot Hill.

The town grew as the market centre for the Wolds around it, its cattle market running until 2001, and it still hosts the Driffield Show, described as the United Kingdom's largest one-day annual agricultural show, alongside the Driffield Steam and Vintage Rally each August. The Driffield Navigation canal, maintained today by its own dedicated trust, runs into the town near the source of the River Hull, and Driffield Beck runs alongside Middle Street itself, well stocked enough with brown trout and grayling to be fished from the high street. RAF Driffield, on the town's edge, was attacked by Luftwaffe bombers on 15 August 1940 in a raid that killed 14 people and was the site of the first WAAF death of the Second World War.

Middle Street's Georgian buildings are almost all pantile: Leason House of 1711 and Pritchett House of 1751 both carry pantile roofs with raised, tumbled gables, and Bridge House, 22 Middle Street North and Easterfield House follow the same pattern into the early nineteenth century. Slightly grander and later buildings shift to slate and tile instead, among them the early nineteenth century Bell Hotel, its town clock a Driffield landmark, and the Victorian High Field Country Club and Our Lady and St Edward's Church. All Saints' Church itself, the oldest building in the town, mixes slate and lead on a stone-built roof.