GIGGLESWICK, a parish (formerly a market-town) in the western division of the wapentake of STAINCLIFFE-and-EWCROSS, West riding of the county of YORK, comprising the townships of Giggleswick, Rathmill, Settle, and Stainforth, and containing 2817 inhabitants, of which number, 746 are in the township of Giggleswick, half of a mile (W. by N.) from Settle. The living is a discharged vicarage, in the archdeaconry and diocese of York, rated in the king's books at £21. 3. 4., endowed with £200 private benefaction, and £200 royal bounty. J. Coulthurst and J. Hartley, Esqrs. were patrons in 1782. The church, dedicated to St. Alkald, is principally in the later English style. Here is a free grammar school, founded by Edward VI. in the 7th year of his reign, in which Archdeacon Paley was educated: the income is estimated at £ 1140 per annum. The founder ordained that it should consist of a master and an usher; and that eight inhabitants should be a body corporate, and have power to act as governors; that it should be free for the classical instruction of all boys, without any restriction or qualification as to residence. Between sixty and seventy boys are educated, and there is one exhibition to the University. Agnes Hargraves also bequeathed a close of land for the instruction of children. At the foot of a ledge of rocks, in this parish, called the Scar, rises a spring, noted for ebbing and flowing, though distant nearly thirty miles from the sea: the water has been known to rise and fall nineteen inches in five minutes.