A grid of hundreds (or their Anglo-Danish equivalents, the
wapentakes) and shires overlay almost the entire country, though in the north governmental structures remained fluid.
That can be traced to families living in the area known as Fartown which is separated from Huddersfield by a brook that was formerly an important boundary between the
wapentakes of Morley and Agbrigg.
Spenser similarly recommends that Ireland should import the system of shires, hundreds,
wapentakes, and tithes that King Alfred had imposed to maintain peace and justice in Saxon England (185-86).
In northern Yorkshire, for instance, the bailiffs of Langbaurgh and of the
wapentakes of Richmondshire, all appointees of the Earl of Salisbury, carried out the duties and exercised the powers of the king's sheriff.
Historically, it was one of the administrative sub-divisions, known as
wapentakes, of the West Riding.
Norse raiders who settled in Yorkshire divided the land into
wapentakes for administrative purposes.