OUR recent meanderings took us to the so-called twin villages of Brafferton and Helperby which are south of Thirsk, not far from Boroughbridge. Situated on the eastern banks of the River Swale, this interesting community has always given rise to the question of whether this is just one village with two names, i. e. Brafferton Helperby, or two quite separate places?

If they are separate villages, then the boundary is invisible to the uninformed visitor like me. They blend together as closely as any two communities can and it is interesting to learn how topographical writers have tackled this dilemma.

In his King's England series, Arthur Mee's Yorkshire: North Riding lists them as "Brafferton-with-Helperby" and adds that they make one big village whilst referring to a single church but two fine halls - Brafferton Hall and Helperby Hall.

Joseph Morris in his well-researched The North Riding of Yorkshire, first published in 1906, says that Brafferton is the name of the parish but the village, though actually adjoining the parish church, is curiously known as Helperby. Murray's Hand Book of Yorkshire refers only to Brafferton Church with no mention of Helperby.

Oswald Harland in his Yorkshire North Riding (1951) writes of the flat land near Boroughbridge and considers the warm red brick villages from Helperby to Brafferton and Raskelf to Aldwark. Alfred Brown's Fair North Riding does not give space to this village although it appears as Brafferton on that book's introductory map, but I can't find either Brafferton or Helperby in Colin Speakman's Portrait of North Yorkshire, published in 1986.

As I would have expected, that doyen of Yorkshire reference books, J S Fletcher's A Picturesque History of Yorkshire, in three volumes (1900), gives space to Brafferton along with its largely forgotten history, but it appears to ignore Helperby.

Brafferton's historic past arises from an ancient suggestion that St Paulinus, claimed to be the Great Apostle of the North and also Archbishop of York, baptised 10,000 converts all at once in the River Swale at Brafferton. This gave rise to the River Swale, especially where it flows past Brafferton, being known as the Jordan of England.

Little over a mile south of Brafferton Helperby is the merging of the rivers Swale and Ure and it was near Myton-on-Swale, the river's final village as it flows towards the Humber and North Sea, that the Battle of Myton was fought in 1319, although my OS map shows the date as 1322. Scottish raiders fought an army hastily gathered together by the Archbishop of York, William de Melton, but most of them were priests clad in white robes. Due to their very unsuitable clothing, the battle became known as the White Battle or sometimes as the Chapter of Myton.

The Scots won and some 300 priests were killed.

This means that the short stretch of the River Swale between Brafferton and Myton - its final journey under that name - has witnessed some of our ancient history. But did Paulinus actually baptise more than 10,000 converts in the Swale near Brafferton? Or did this occur at a place called the Swale on the Kentish coast near the Isle of Sheppey? There are arguments to support both.

Paulinus was a member of the second wave of missionaries sent by the Pope to England in 601 and he was consecrated bishop at Canterbury. In 625, when Princess Ethelburga of Kent travelled north to marry Edwin of Northumbria, she was accompanied by her chaplain, Bishop Paulinus.

When Edwin was murdered in 632, Paulinus accompanied Ethelburga and her children back to Kent by sea where he spent his remaining years as Bishop of Rochester. Although he had such strong links with Kent, he was recognised by Pope Honorius I as Archbishop of York. He died in 644 at Rochester and his feast day was last Wednesday, October 10.

It was the wedding of Ethelburga and Edwin that gave rise to discussions about the system for calculating the date of Easter in England which in turn spawned the Synod of Whitby in 644 - but that's another story.

Our brief visit to Brafferton was brightened by a walk down its charming main street. With its cobbles, halftimbered buildings, old brick houses, a water pump beneath a cupola and a tantalising shop/cafn, it appears to be in a time-warp that reflects the past. I could imagine coaches and horses travelling down this street with ladies in crinolines on the footpaths and top-hatted gentlemen doing business outside some of the splendid buildings.

There is little wonder this scenic village is sometimes used by television producers as an authentic setting for costume dramas.

A QUERY from a reader living in Thirsk has highlighted the fact that this time of year is when many members of our wild bird population are on the move. The year's spring and summer visitors are leaving for warmer and sunnier places whilst we are welcoming incomers from Scandinavia and other northern regions as winter sets in.

Some birds will be passing through as migrants, resting and feeding for short periods before continuing their journeys, but others will remain. Most of us will recognise some as cousins of our thrushes, i. e. redwings and fieldfares, or perhaps we will notice flocks of geese flying overhead.

However, my correspondent noticed a flock of up to 100 small birds paying visits to a tree in Thirsk market place.

The thick foliage plus the quick movements of the birds made it difficult to see their colours and so she found recognition very difficult. She wonders what they might have been?

From the information she provided, I think it possible they were a flock of reed buntings. Although these birds are present all year around, we get migrant reed buntings travelling through our country, perhaps resting and feeding before continuing their journey.

Buntings and finches are alike in appearance, size and behaviour and although we generally associate the reed bunting with marshlands and reed beds, it does visit other locations such as farmland, stubble fields, hedgerows and wooded areas, particularly if there is water or marshes nearby.

Reed buntings will mingle with other buntings and finches, even joining flocks of house sparrows or tree sparrows as they search for food and shelter.

The male reed bunting is about six inches long (15cm) and he is a smart fellow with a black head and throat interspaced by a patch of white. The upper parts of his body are a beautiful warm brown streaked with black, and his outer tail feathers are edged with white. The tip of his tail has a distinctive V-shape. He loses much of this colouring in winter when he tends to look rather like the brown female.

I think my Thirsk correspondent saw a flock of reed buntings resting and feeding during migration but of course, I cannot be sure. I did wonder if she had seen a flock of long-tailed tits but if they had turned up in that Thirsk tree, they would have been chattering and twittering the whole time.