Compared to our close neighbour Aldbrough, we are a pair of very small villages, associated by sharing a Parish Council* of five persons who meet four times a year. The total population is around 100, living either in scattered farms and houses or around the two site of now defunct estates - Stanwick Hall and Carlton Hall.

Many of the dwellings are situated in and around the surviving walls and gardens of these estates; some were built by the estates for their staff (or the horses) and others have since appeared as plots have changed hands. Development opportunities are severely restricted particularly in Stanwick since we are surrounded by the Brigantian earthwork which is a Sheduled Monument. This means that certain building work has to be supervised by an archaeologist and some is forbidden entirely.

There is no public ‘centre’ to either hamlet except it be St John the baptist’s Church at Stanwick and its immediate surroundings. (When we decided to mark the millennium with a public seat, its position was dictated by the existence of a small triangle of grass between lych gate and bridge, luckily facing south, which seemed to belong to nobody.)