The Beginning

Though it is possible that the Horncastles moved to theWest Riding of Yorkshire before the conquest occupying land under the same overlord as the owner of their Lincolnshire properties, it is far more likely that their migration was directed by the Norman or Breton feudal lords, and the name before the prefix De, by which they were first known, lends colour to this assumption, since it was the practice of the Normans to give surnames according to the original dwelling place of the person.

There is however, definite evidence of them being settled in the West Riding in the early part of the 12^th century.Doomsday records William De Horncastle who had land at Skelbrook.Later in Richard 11 poll of 1379, 10 Horncastle’s paid the tax in Yorkshire at Wrangbrook, Hemsworth, Tickhill and Whiston.

The poll tax levy was usually 4d per person (in 1379 a gallon of red win cost 4d and a quarter of wheat cost 4/-).They were levied on the area of land they owned in the wapentake derived from the Danelaw and the five boroughs established by the Danes in 874.Wapentakes were groupings of parishes, as little as 3 or as many as 26.The wapentakes were in turn divisions of Shires and the appointee (Kings representative) was the shire-reeve (Sheriff). 

The Horncastle’s gradually spread from Skelbrook acquiring land etc to Pontefract and from Wrangbrook to South Kirby, South Elmsall, Leeds, Huddersfield, Snaith, Hull, York, Doncaster, and eventually to Ireland and London.