1) A dam or pool. They were often mill dams and served as fish-ponds.
1497 and ther riotously brak and kit out a stank ... and let the water out and also brake the mylnestone ... and distroid grete nombre of pykez, bremez, tenchez and other fyssh. Tockwith
1568 le grete Stank sive stange cum omnibus pooles and watirs ibidem currentibus, Steeton near Tadcaster
1615 hath promised to fornyshe me ... with carpes breams and tenshes when he drawes his pond or great stanke, Brandsby
1633 All the stancke or dam of the mill, Myton on Swale
1736 all dams, stanks, banks, ponds, Driffield. The earliest references are in Latin: 1148-54 me concessisse abbati et fratribus ecclesie ... stangnum suum super terram meam firmare ad piscacionem et molendinum construendum, Sawley
1227 licenciam et libertatem attachiandi stangnum suum molendini sui ... super terram meam, Hunslet. In his Ducatus Leodiensis, the Leeds historian Thoresby wrote of New Hall in Beeston, which adjoins Hunslet: The ancient Name of this Place was Stank. Which implies its abounding with standing Waters or Pools, Places so situate being frequently so called in these Northern Parts.
2) A dialect word for a wooden pole or stake.
1379-80 Et in viij stanges meremij sarrandis [timber poles sawing], Ripon
1472 in viij sparres of fyre, ijs … for j pottyng stang, jd, York
1658 4 balks, 2 stangs, Selby
1718 had broken open a door with a stang, Langfield
1728 the meat hanged upon a stang in the pitt. Specific uses are implicit in ‘potting’ above, if this not a misreading, and in nowte [cattle] stanges, recorded in Richmond in 1574. Used also for the shaft of a cart or pairs of shafts: 1589 twoo boarded coupes and two payer coupe stanges, Downholme. It gave rise to a rare occupational term: 1488 Robert Boyth, stangmaker, Sandal. In the east of the county it can be compared with 'rod, pole and perch', as a measure when referring to the divisions in the town fields: 1348-9 ‘a strip of land … called Fourstanges’, Adlingfleet
1431 ‘two acres of meadow, a stang less’, York
1582 an acre iij stange of wheate, South Cave
1595 three stanges thereof abuttinge towards the easte on the Twyer, Ganstead.