The village appears in the Domesday Book in 1086 as Biletone of the Annesti (Bilton in Ainsty). The parish registers go back in 1571 and record for 1644 the burial of several soldiers killed in the nearby Battle of Marston Moor, after which some Royalist prisoners were held in the church. Bilton Hall and its manor passed to the Plumer family in the 18th century, who established a school in 1801. John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870–72) described Bilton, then including not only Bickerton, but Tockwith, as follows: "BILTON, a township, a parish, and a subdistrict in the district of Tadcaster, W. R. Yorkshire. The township lies on the York and High Harrogate railway, near Hammerton station, 5 miles ENE of Wetherby; and has a post office under York. Acres, 1,460.-Real property, £2,606. Pop., 242. Houses, 44. The parish includes also the townships of Bickerton and Tockwith. Acres, 4,150. Real property, £6,894. Pop., 926 Houses, 201. A Cistercian nunnery was founded here, at Symingthwaite, about 1,160, by Bertram de Haget. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of York Value. £300.* Patron, the Prebendary of Bilton. Tockwith was made a separate benefice in 1867. There are two Wesleyan chapels and an endowed school.-The subdistrict comprises two parishes and two parts. Pop., 1,493." Notable people The writer sisters Annie (1825–1879) and Eliza Keary (1827–1918) were born at what is now the Old Vicarage, Church Lane, Bilton-in-Ainsty, where their father, Rev. William Keary, was vicar and their mother Lucy the daughter of Hall Plumer of Bilton Hall. A third sister, Maud, also took part in joint writing projects. The oldest brother, also William Keary and born in Bilton, was a solicitor who became the first mayor of Stoke-on-Trent, when it was incorporated in 1874. Sport Bilton-in-Ainsty has a village cricket club, the BIACC, founded in 1932. The club plays in the York and District League Galtres Division 2 and Wetherby League Division 3. It is nicknamed the Frogs for its team badge. External resources W. V. Crapp: Some Historical Notes on the Parish and Parish Church of St Helen's, Bilton in Ainsty with Bickerton, 1973. References External links Villages in North Yorkshire