Dunnington

History

Dunnington village was an Anglo-Saxon settlement, and was listed in the 1086 Domesday Book as "Donniton", which, according to Mills, translates as an "estate associated with a man called Dun(n)a". The fields around the village became the country's major area for growing chicory. On 1 April 1935 the civil parish of Grimston was abolished and merged with Dunnington. Between 1913 and 1926 Dunnington was served by passenger trains on the Derwent Valley Light Railway, and the remaining goods-only railway was withdrawn in stages following the Beeching Axe. Steam trains ran to Dunnington on this line between 1977 and 1979, but following the closure of a crop drying facility the last tracks covering the route to York via Murton and Osbaldwick were lifted. In 2006 Dunnington published a village design statement (VDS) as part of a national scheme introduced by the Countryside Commission in 1996. This describes the history, visual characteristics and local setting of the village and surrounding landscape. The VDS forms part of the Parish Plan. Dunnington was the category winner in the small town category (for settlements with population over 3,000) of the 2014 Britain in Bloom competition. The original Victorian village school was demolished, but a doctors' surgery building that sits on the site was built using a complementary construction style and reclaimed materials.