Donors usually had a clear idea about who should benefit from their gift and who should not be able to partake of it.

It was usually the deserving who were to be admitted. People of quiet and sober disposition who were honest and hard working were to benefit and not commom beggars, harlots, scolds and haunters of inns and alehouses. People from specific occupational backgrounds such as seafarers and clergymen's widows were often mentioned.

Almshouses exist in a variety of sizes and styles depending on the wealth of the foundation and the fashion of the period in which they were built. They varied from single cottages built by unknown builders to miniature villages designed by well known architects.

Frederick Ross (1898) tells us that the Widows Almshouses, in Westgate, Driffield, were founded towards the end of the 18th century, by John Gray, gentleman, of Great Driffield. The Gray family was one of the oldest and principal landowners in Driffield and resided in the house in Eastgate in which Mr Benjamin Fawcett, colour printer, later lived and carried on his business.

Ross gives us an extract from John Gray's will, dated 1797, which gives the object of the foundation and its location:

'Whereas I have lately erected and built some almshouses in Great Driffield, aforesaid, adjoining the newly-erected Methodist Meeting House there towards the south; to the land of Richard Langley Esq, towards the north; to a certain street there called Westgate, towards the west; and have also fenced off a little piece of ground on the east or east side of the almshouses, as and by way of a little yard or convenience thereto; for the residence and habitation of seven poor persons, being widow, widower, old maid or bachelor, belonging to the town of Great Driffield aforesaid, and not receiving relief therefrom without paying any rent acknowledgment for the same, other than keeping the same in repair...'

The almshouses were generally governed by strict rules enforced by a master, chaplain, preacher, matron or mother. In addition to clothing the residents sometimes received money, coals, firewood, candles and food. Rules generally covered church attendance, cleanliness, duties to be performed, intake of alcohol and visitors staying.

Four almshouses and a common room were built in 1873 by John Hotham, in memory of his brother Charles, for old people of the united parish, and were subsequently maintained by the Hotham family. Charles Hotham, son of Admiral Hotham, died unmarried on May 29, 1872, and was succeeded by his brother John.
The houses were built of stone in a Tudor style standing next to the churchyard, facing a walled garden with a communal pump.

The almshouse at Burton Agnes for four poor widows, was founded in 1709, by the widow of W Boynton Esq, and endowed with £20 10s per annum. Later an annual payment of £8 4s 9d was equally divided between the poor and the school master, this sum was paid in lieu of the commom right, which the poor parishioners in the past had on about 60 acres of land, called Moorhouse Field.

Anne Walker of Beverley, by will proved in 1707, decreed four cottages to Robert Walker, one of them being already divided into three rooms for poor widows of Foston. She left the widows a rent - charge of £1 10s, on condition that the township kept the almshouses in repair. The terms of the will were still being observed in 1822. The almshouses were allocated one acre at inclosure in 1780 and this was producing £5 rent in the later 19th century.

The almshouses are said to have been rebuilt in 1887, still with accommodation for three persons. Subsequently they were often wholly or partially unoccupied, but in 1930 the cottages and land still produced £6 rent and there was £73 in hand. A scheme of that year provided that if no widows were available the rooms might be let to other occupants.
In 1968 a simple single-story brick structure was derelict.

In 1823, £13 a year was received from several old benefactors in Wansford. The interest was distributed by the administrators of the poor to widows in the township.

This charity may have supported almshouses later in the century. In 1892 it was said that there had formerly been almshouses for three widows, who received 16s a year from a bequest by a St Quintin. The vicar of Nafferton alleged in 1897 that three houses of the poor in Wansford had been pulled down 'some years' before by Sir Tatton Sykes, and rebuilt as one house, no longer occupied by the poor.