Nunburnholme derives its name from the Old EnglishBurnholme (“burn” = spring, stream; “holm” = island in a river,[3] and was variously spelt Brunnum, Brunham and Brunne in medieval times. The prefix “Nun-“ was added some time before the 16th century with reference to Nunburnholme Priory.[4]
Nunburnholme was laid waste during the Harrying of the North in 1069–70 and was still deserted in 1086. The entry for the manor of Brunham in the Domesday Book reads:
"Terra Tainorum Regis. East Riding. Hessle Hundred. Manerium. In Brunham, Morcar, Turvet and Turchil had 11 carucates of taxable land. There is land for six ploughs. One carucate is soke in Pocklington. Forne holds it of the King, and it is waste."[5]
The parish church of St James is a Grade I listed building,[6] noted for its former incumbents the Reverend Francis Orpen Morris, author of works on natural history, and his son, the Rev. Marmaduke Charles Frederick Morris, antiquarian and author.[7]
During restoration in 1872–7 two sections of an important late Anglo-Saxon cross-shaft were discovered walled up in the church.[4] The Nunburnholme Cross now stands within the church, its two sections incorrectly mounted back to front. The highly ornamented faces of the cross-shaft comprise Anglo-Saxon Christian figures, an unusual haloed warrior in profile, and later pagan Viking and Norman additions.[8]
In 1823 Nunburnholme was a civil parish in the Wapentake of Harthill. Baines stated that there was previously a small Benedictine nunnery, indicated by a mound, that was founded by the ancestors of Roger de Morley. Population at the time was 203, with occupations including ten farmers and yeomen, a shoemaker and shopkeeper, a schoolmaster, and a wheelwright.[10]
