Note :The following information is based on an article in the Ryedale Historian No12 (1984) by Mr Jean Davis who kindly supplied my father with the information.

ROGER HEBDEN was of the Appleton le Street family and was born in 1621. By 1651, Roger was a woollen draper and tailor in New Malton when George Foz, the founder of the Quaker movement came in the scene.
Roger was strongly influenced by Fox and firmly embraced the Quaker religion with a fervour that was to cause him to spend considerable time in prison. About this time he had bought Fersit House at South Holme and it was used as a Meeting House in 1652 and remained inuse as such for 125 years.

A burial ground was established there, perhaps at a later date.

Roger’s outspoken views on religion, in a time when religious tolerance was not fashionable, resulted in several jail sentences of the following examples :
Jailed 30-40 weeks at York in 1654. At Aylesbury in 1657, a 2 week sentence.

In November 1658, he married Lucye Davisson, daughter of Robert Davisson of Newton.

Under Charles II, he refused to take an oath of allegiance and spend a period in York Castle.
On 8th August, 1664 he was arrested at Sheriff Hutton and sent to York Castle for 3 months. The same happened again in 1665. He was fined in 1671 & 1684.

When he died he was 75 years old and his name is recorded amongst those of the “Valiant Sixty” and as one of “The First Publishers of Truth”.

Isaac, his son, inherited Fersit House in 1676 and held it for 60 years. He married Frances Clarkson and they ahd eleven children, few of whom survived infancy. Isaac died in 1740 and was buried in his own burial ground.

He had two children alive when he died – John aged 53 was unmarried and Edith was aged 40. She entered the ministry for 10 years.

John lived to be 90 and was also buried at Fersit House in 1777.
Edith married Francis Flower of Kirkby Sigston and had a son Isaac Flower who was born 1737.

In due course, Isaac Flower had four children, Lucy, Edith, John &Hebden.

John Hebden did not pass on Fersit house to his nephew Isaac when he died in 1777, but to Isaac ‘s second son, Hebden Flower.

Hebden Flower was not buried at Fersit House but his grave lies at St Gregory’s Minster in Kirkdale.

Miss Webster of York ws researching Fersit House in the 1980s and had some evidence that indicated that it might have been the farm found on some maps as “Peep – o –Day” but whose present name is now “Dixieland”.