YORKSHIRE
VALES AND WOLDS
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
YORKSHIRE
COAST AND MOORLAND SCENES
SECOND EDITION
CONTAINING 31 FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR. SQUARE DEMY 8vo.,
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Coast and Moorland Scenes.”... The illustrations, as we have said, are
wonderful examples of colour printing, and many of the moorland scenes
have been reproduced beautifully, especially the “Sunset from Danby
Beacon,” which seems to have retained the Cleveland atmosphere in a
remarkable manner.’
YORKSHIRE
DALES AND FELLS
CONTAINING 20 FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR. SQUARE DEMY 8vo.,
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[Illustration: YORK FROM THE MINSTER
The view is taken from the great central tower, whose parapet shows in
the foreground with the roof of the nave and western towers beyond.
Bootham Bar and part of the city wall are on the right, and between the
towers can be seen the roofs of the Tudor building known as the King’s
Manor.]
YORKSHIRE
VALES AND WOLDS
PAINTED &
DESCRIBED
BY
GORDON HOME
[Illustration: rosette colophon]
PUBLISHED BY A. & C.
BLACK · LONDON · MCMVIII
TO
J. L. K.
Preface
In two previous books, entitled ‘Yorkshire Coast and Moorland Scenes’
and ‘Yorkshire Dales and Fells,’ I have described the northern half of
the great county, and in this third volume I have in a similar manner
dealt with the southern parts. The three books, therefore, complete a
description of what has appealed to me as most notable in Yorkshire, on
account of picturesqueness or association with historic events and great
personages. Owing to the enormous area of the county and the treasures
it contains, the task of selection has not been easy, and the work of
exploring, note-taking, painting, and writing, has spread over some four
years. I have endeavoured to quote only from the most reliable and
authentic sources, and in doing so have avoided some errors which have
reappeared several times in writings of the last twenty years. Should
any inaccuracies be discovered, however, I shall be grateful to anyone
who will point them out. To those who are not familiar with Yorkshire,
I may mention that the places I have described are easily reached from
the South, the journey to York from King’s Cross only taking three or
four hours.
GORDON HOME
RESTON HOUSE,
EPSOM,
_April, 1908_.
Contents
CHAPTER I
PAGE
CONCERNING THE WOLDS 3
CHAPTER II
FROM FILEY TO SPURN HEAD 33
CHAPTER III
BEVERLEY 71
CHAPTER IV
ALONG THE HUMBER 87
CHAPTER V
THE DERWENT AND THE HOWARDIAN HILLS 121
CHAPTER VI
A BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE CITY OF YORK 145
CHAPTER VII
THE MANUFACTURING DISTRICT 159
INDEX 183
List of Illustrations
1. York from the Central Tower of the Minster (the
Western Towers in the Middle Distance) _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
2. Wind and Sunshine on the Wolds 10
3. Filey Brig 34
4. The Outermost Point of Flamborough Head 48
5. Hornsea Mere 62
6 The Market Place, Beverley 72
7. Beverley Minster 76
8. Patrington Church 100
9. Wressle Castle 110
10. Kirkham Abbey 124
11. Stamford Bridge 126
12. Sheriff Hutton Castle 130
13. Coxwold Village 136
14. The West Front of the Church of Byland Abbey 140
15. Stonegate, York 150
16. Bootham Bar, York 152
17. New Hall, Pontefract 166
18. Kirkstall Abbey, Leeds 174
19. Haworth Church and ‘Parsonage’ 178
20. Iron Foundries at Brightside, Sheffield 180
_Sketch Map at End of Volume._
CONCERNING THE WOLDS
CHAPTER I
CONCERNING THE WOLDS
On wide uplands of chalk the air has a raciness, the sunlight a purity
and a sparkle, not to be found in low lands. There may be no streams,
perhaps not even a pond; you may find few large trees, and scarcely any
parks; ruined abbeys and even castles may be conspicuously absent, and
yet the landscapes have a power of attracting and fascinating. This is
exactly the case with the Wolds of Yorkshire, and their characteristics
are not unlike the chalk hills of Sussex, or those great expanses of
windswept downs, where the weathered monoliths of Stonehenge have
resisted sun and storm for ages.
When we endeavour to analyse the power of attraction exerted by the
Wolds, we find it to exist in the sweeping outlines of the land with
scarcely a house to be seen for many miles, in the purity of the air
owing to the absence of smoke, in the brilliance of the sunlight due to
the whiteness of the roads and fields, and in the wonderful breezes that
for ever blow across pasture, stubble, and roots.
Unpleasant weather does prevail on this high ground; wet sea-mists
sometimes hang there and obliterate every feature; the wind has a power
of penetrating the heaviest coats, and the rain is often merciless; but
all these things may be said of the Riviera, where one expects
uninterrupted days of warm sunshine. Taken as a whole, there is a
decided character about Wold weather conditions which appeals to all who
belong to the eastern counties of England.
Above the eastern side of the valley, where the Derwent takes its deep
and sinuous course towards the alluvial lands, the chalk first makes its
appearance in the neighbourhood of Acklam, and farther north at
Wharram-le-Street, where picturesque hollows with precipitous sides
break up the edge of the cretaceous deposits. Eastwards the high
country, scarred here and there with gleaming chalk-pits, and netted
with roads of almost equal whiteness, continues to the great headland of
Flamborough, where the sea frets and fumes all the summer, and lacerates
the cliffs during the stormy months. The masses of flinty chalk have
shown themselves so capable of resisting the erosion of the sea that the
seaward termination of the Wolds has for many centuries been becoming
more and more a pronounced feature of the east coast of England, and if
the present rate of encroachment along the low shores of Holderness is
continued, this accentuation will become still more conspicuous.
The open roads of the Wolds, bordered by bright green grass and hedges
that lean away from the direction of the prevailing wind, give wide
views to bare horizons, or glimpses beyond vast stretches of waving
corn, of distant country, blue and indistinct, and so different in
character to the immediate surroundings as to suggest the ocean. Here
and there up against the sky-line appear long dark coppices, and
half-hidden in a hollow, a purely agricultural hamlet nestles, its
presence being only made apparent by the slender spire or grey tower
peeping over the hedges. On a morning when the wind is marshalling the
clouds in echelon across the sky, and belts of shadow go a-hunting
across the swelling hill-sides, the scenery wears the aspect illustrated
here; the sunny, smiling landscape I always expect on chalk uplands.
At Flamborough the white cliffs, topped with the clay deposit of the
glacial ages, approach a height of 200 feet; but although the thickness
of the chalk is estimated to be from 1,000 to 1,500 feet, the greatest
height above sea-level is near Wilton Beacon, where the hills rise
sharply from the Vale of York to 808 feet, and the beacon itself is 23
feet lower. On this western side of the plateau the views are extremely
good, extending for miles across the flat green vale, where the Derwent
and the Ouse, having lost much of the light-heartedness and gaiety
characterizing their youth in the dales, take their wandering and
converging courses towards the Humber. In the distance you can
distinguish a group of towers, a stately blue-grey outline cutting into
the soft horizon. It is York Minster. To the north-west lie the
beautifully wooded hills that rise above the Derwent, and hold in their
embrace Castle Howard, Newburgh Priory, and many a stately park.
Towards the north the descents are equally sudden, and the panorama of
the Vale of Pickering, extending from the hills behind Scarborough to
Helmsley far away in the west, is most remarkable. Down below lies the
circumscribed plain, dead-level except for one or two isolated hillocks.
The soil is dark and rich, and there is a marshy appearance everywhere,
showing plainly the waterlogged condition of the land even at the
present day, reminding us of the fact, discovered through the patient
work of such geologists as Professor Kendall, that this level vale,
surrounded on all sides by enclosing hills, was in prehistoric times a
great lake overflowing into the Vale of York through the narrow valley
where the ruins of Kirkham Abbey now stand. Towards Holderness, the
inner curve of the crescent of chalk hills slopes gently downwards, a
fact easily explained by the continuation of the cretaceous stratum
beneath the boulder clay of the surface over the whole of the
south-eastern corner of the county.
There is scarcely a district in England to compare with the Yorkshire
Wolds for its remarkable richness in the remains of Early Man. As long
ago as the middle of last century, when archæology was more of a pastime
than a science, this corner of the country had become famous for the
rich discoveries in tumuli made by a few local enthusiasts. That the
finds were made then, and not later, is a matter of some regret to the
archæologists of to-day, for with the vastly improved knowledge of the
methods and habits of Neolithic man existing to-day, more facts could,
no doubt, have been discovered from the priceless material then brought
to light. However that may be, sufficient careful exploration and
classification has been done to show that a very large population must
have dwelt on the Wolds in Neolithic times. Although it is almost
impossible to assign any reason for the limitation, these early people
appear to have chiefly occupied the area between Filey, Flamborough,
Huggate, and Middleton-in-the-Wolds. Flint implements of this same New
Stone Age have also been found in great abundance in the neighbourhoods
of Malton, Pickering, and Scarborough.
It has been suggested that the flint-bearing character of the Wolds made
this part of Yorkshire a district for the manufacture of implements and
weapons for the inhabitants of a much larger area, and no doubt the
possession of this ample supply of offensive material would give the
tribe in possession a power, wealth, and permanence sufficient to
account for the wonderful evidences of a great and continuous
population. In these districts it is only necessary to go slowly over a
ploughed field after a period of heavy rain to be fairly certain to pick
up a flint knife, a beautifully chipped arrow-head, or an implement of
less obvious purpose, generally described as a scraper. In this way,
apart from any finds in barrows, large collections have been formed,
and the best of them have gradually left private hands and reached
permanent resting-places in the museums at York, Great Driffield,[A]
Leeds, Malton, and Scarborough. When bronze-using man reached these
parts, the population appears to have continued to be large, for their
remains have been discovered all over the Wolds; and when the
Prehistoric Iron Age in turn succeeded that period, we find from the
burial mounds that there were men still living here.
To those who have never taken any interest in the traces of Early Man in
this country, this may appear a musty subject, but to me it is quite the
reverse. The long lines of entrenchments, the round tumuli, and the
prehistoric sites generally--omitting lake dwellings--are almost
invariably to be found upon high and windswept tablelands, wild or only
recently cultivated places, where the echoes have scarcely been
disturbed since the long-forgotten ages, when a primitive tribe mourned
the loss of a chieftain, or yelled defiance at their enemies from their
double or triple lines of defence.
In journeying in any direction through the Wolds it is impossible to
forget the existence of Early Man, for on the sky-line just above the
road will appear a row of two or three rounded projections from the
regular line of turf or stubble. They are burial-mounds that the plough
has never levelled--heaps of earth that have resisted the disintegrating
action of weather and man for thousands of years. If such relics of the
primitive inhabitants of this island fail to stir the imagination, then
the mustiness must exist in the unresponsive mind rather than in the
subject under discussion.
In making an exploration of the Wolds a good starting-place is the
old-fashioned town of Malton, whence railways radiate in five
directions, including the line to Great Driffield, which takes advantage
of the valley leading up to Wharram Percy, and there tunnels its way
through the high ground.
Choosing a day when the weather is in a congenial mood for rambling,
lingering, or picnicking, or, in other words, when the sun is not too
hot, nor the wind too cold, nor the sky too grey, we make our start
towards the hills. We go on wheels--it is unimportant how many, or to
what they are attached--in order that the long stretches of white road
may not become tedious. The stone bridge over the Derwent is crossed,
and, glancing back, we see the piled-up red roofs crowded along the
steep
[Illustration: AMONG THE WOLDS
The white chalk roads, the flying cloud shadows, the huge fields,
and the isolated coppices on the horizon, are typical of Wold
scenery. The view is on the road from Sledmere to Helperthorpe.
]
ground above the further bank, with the church raising its spire high
above its newly-restored nave. Then the wide street of Norton, which is
scarcely to be distinguished from Malton, being separated from it only
by the river, shuts in the view with its houses of whity-red brick,
until their place is taken by hedgerows. To the left stretches the Vale
of Pickering, still a little hazy with the remnants of the night’s mist.
Straight ahead and to the right the ground rises up, showing a wall
chequered with cornfields and root-crops, with long lines of plantations
appearing like dark green caterpillars crawling along the horizon.
The first village encountered is Rillington, with a church whose stone
spire and the tower it rests upon have the appearance of being copied
from Pickering. Inside there is an Early English font, and one of the
arcades of the nave belongs to the same period.
Turning southwards a mile or two further on, we pass through the pretty
village of Wintringham, and, when the cottages are passed, find the
church standing among trees where the road bends, its tower and spire
looking much like the one just left behind. The interior is interesting.
The pews are all of old panelled oak, unstained, and with acorn knobs
at the ends; the floor is entirely covered with glazed red tiles. The
late Norman chancel, the plain circular font of the same period, and the
massive altar-slab in the chapel, enclosed by wooden screens on the
north side, are the most notable features. Under the tower--a position
in churches where many interesting objects are often hidden up by
curtains and woodwork--you find a quaint list of rules and fines for the
bell-ringers, dating from nearly two centuries ago. Coming again into
the sunny churchyard, we pass through the shadows cast by the gently
moving foliage, and are soon climbing steadily into the smooth
undulations of the uplands. At the turning to West Heslerton, a long
entrenchment of prehistoric date stretches away on either side for two
or three miles. In the seaward direction it goes up to Sherburn Wold,
where you find an early camp, and where bronze daggers and celts have
been discovered. At a meeting of four roads a little further on, we come
to the head of the valley, appearing in the background of the
illustration given here; and going to the east we reach Helperthorpe,
one of the Wold villages adorned with a new church in the Decorated
style. The village gained this ornament through the generosity of the
present Sir Tatton Sykes, of Sledmere, whose enthusiasm for church
building is not confined to one place. In his own park at Sledmere, four
miles to the south, at West Lutton, East Heslerton, and Wansford you may
see other examples of modern church building, in which the architect has
not been hampered by having to produce a certain accommodation at a
minimum cost. And thus in these villages the fact of possessing a modern
church does not detract from their charm; instead of doing so, the
pilgrim in search of ecclesiastical interest finds much to draw him to
them.
As a contrast to Helperthorpe, the adjoining hamlet of Weaverthorpe has
a church of very early Norman or possibly Saxon date, and an inscribed
Saxon stone a century earlier than the one at Kirkdale, near Kirby
Moorside. The inscription is on a sundial over the south porch in both
churches; but while that of Kirkdale is quite complete and perfect, this
one has words missing at the beginning and end. Haigh suggests that the
half-destroyed words should read: ‘LIT OSCETVLI ARCHIEPISCOPI.’ Then,
without any doubt, comes: ‘✠ IN: HONORE: SCE: ANDREAE APOSTOLI:
HEREBERTUS WINTONIE · HOC MONASTERIVM FECIT: IN TEMPORE REGN.’ Here the
inscription suddenly stops and leaves us in ignorance as to in whose
time the monastery was built. There seems little doubt at all that
Father Haigh’s suggested completion of the sentence is correct, making
it read: ‘IN TEMPORE REGN[ALDI REGIS SECUNDI],’ which would have just
filled a complete line.
The coins of Regnald II. of Northumbria bear Christian devices, and it
is known that he was confirmed in 942, while his predecessor of that
name appears to have been a pagan. If the restoration of the first words
of the inscription are correct, the stone cannot be placed earlier than
the year 952 (Dr. Stubbs says 958), when Oscetul succeeded Wulstan to
the See of York. However, even in a neighbourhood so replete with
antiquities this is sufficiently far back in the age of the Vikings to
be of thrilling interest, for you must travel far to find another
village church with an inscription carved nearly a thousand years ago,
at a time when the English nation was still receiving its infusion of
Scandinavian strength.
The arch of the tower and the door below the sundial have the narrowness
and rudeness suggesting the pre-Norman age, but more than this it is
unwise to say.
Not far from the village there are double entrenchments and tumuli, and
many prehistoric remains have been brought to light. Among the Neolithic
and bronze implements, a stag’s-horn pick was found, and in a barrow,
where a skeleton of a young person buried in a contracted position was
unearthed, a jet necklace consisting of 122 beads and a pendant was
discovered.
And so we go on through the wide sunny valley, watching the shadows
sweep across the fields, where often the soil is so thin that the ground
is more white than brown, scanning the horizon for tumuli, and taking
note of the different characteristics of each village. Not long ago the
houses, even in the small towns, were thatched, and even now there are
hamlets still cosy and picturesque under their mouse-coloured roofs; but
in most instances you see a transition state of tiles gradually ousting
the inflammable but beautiful thatch. The tiles all through the Wolds
are of the curved pattern, and though cheerful in the brilliance of
their colour, and unspeakably preferable to thin blue slates, they do
not seem to weather or gather moss and rich colouring in the same manner
as the usual flat tile of the southern counties.
We turn aside to look at the rudely carved Norman tympanum over the
church door at Wold Newton, and then go up to Thwing, on the rising
ground to the south, where we may see what Mr. Joseph Morris claims to
be the only other Norman tympanum in the East Riding. A cottage is
pointed out as the birthplace of Archbishop Lamplugh, who held the See
of York from 1688 to 1691. He was of humble parentage, and it is said
that he would often pause in conversation to slap his legs and say,
‘Just fancy me being Archbishop of York!’ The name of the village is
derived from the Norse word _Thing_, meaning an assembly.
Keeping on towards the sea, we climb up out of the valley, and passing
Argam Dike and Grindale, come out upon a vast gently undulating plateau
with scarcely a tree to be seen in any direction. A few farms are dotted
here and there over the landscape, and towards Filey we can see a
windmill; but beyond these it seems as though the fierce winds that
assail the promontory of Flamborough had blown away everything that was
raised more than a few feet above the furrows. The hedges, tired of
being buffetted, have given up the struggle and become flattened out to
the south-west, and the few trees that have kept themselves alive are
thin and half-starved.
The village of Bempton has, however, contrived to maintain itself in
its bleak situation, although it is less than two miles from the huge
perpendicular cliffs where the Wolds drop into the sea. The cottages
have a snug and eminently cheerful look, with their much-weathered tiles
and white and ochre coloured walls. From their midst rises the low
square tower of the church, and if it ever had a spire or pinnacles in
the past, it has none now; for either the north-easterly gales blew them
into the sea long ago, or else the people were wise enough never to put
such obstructions in the way of the winter blasts. Even the ricks are
put close to the cottages for shelter, and although the day seemed warm,
with a cool wind, when we left Malton, the temperature seems to have
gone down many degrees on this exposed corner of the chalk tableland.
Turning southwards, we get a great view over the low shore of
Holderness, curving away into the haze hanging over the ocean, with
Bridlington down below, raising to the sky the pair of towers at the
west end of its priory--one short and plain, and the other tall and
richly ornamented with pinnacles. Going through the streets of sober red
houses of the old town, we come at length into a shallow green valley,
where the curious Gypsy Race flows intermittently along the fertile
bottom. The afternoon sunshine floods the pleasant landscape with a
genial glow, and throws long blue shadows under the trees of the park
surrounding Boynton Hall, the seat of the Stricklands. The family has
been connected with the village for several centuries, and some of their
richly-painted and gilded monuments can be seen in the church. One of
these is to Sir William Strickland, Bart., and another to Lady
Strickland, his wife, who was a sister of Sir Hugh Cholmley, the gallant
but unfortunate defender of Scarborough Castle during the Civil War. In
his memoirs Sir Hugh often refers to visits paid him by ‘my sister
Strickland.’
After passing Thorpe Hall the road goes up to the breezy spot,
commanding wide views, where the little church of Rudstone stands
conspicuously by the side of an enormous monolith. Although the church
tower is Norman, it would appear to be a recent arrival on the scene in
comparison with the stone. Antiquaries are in fairly general agreement
that huge standing stones of this type belong to some very remote
period, and also that they are ‘associated with sepulchral purposes’;
and the fact that they are usually found in churchyards would suggest
that they were regarded with a traditional veneration. The stone is 25
feet 4 inches high, and from a statement made in 1769 by a Mr. Willan,
we are led to believe that its depth underground is equal to its height
above, ‘as appeared from an experiment made by the late Sir William
Strickland.’ It is not known whether this ‘experiment’ consisted in
digging down to the lowest extremity of the stone; the language seems to
suggest otherwise, and the total length of the stone must remain
hypothetical until such operations take place. The rustics of the
locality incline towards a sensational depth, for, evidently based on
the stories of the half-forgotten squire’s digging, they say that they
have heard tell how that when an attempt was made to find how far down
the stone went, those who were digging found that it was impossible to
get to the bottom, and gave it up as a hopeless task. And thus you may
find a group of peasants in the churchyard on fine Sunday evenings
staring hard at the furrowed surface of the monolith, and thinking,
Heaven knows what, of the profound regions from which their stone
springs. The interior of the church is remarkable for its fine modern
organ, placed there by the owner of Thorpe Hall, who is also the
organist. To find the requisite space the instrument had to be placed
at the west end of the nave, but it is controlled from the chancel, the
necessary motive power being generated in a small building in the
churchyard. The present generation of Rudstonians should not find
themselves dull when they are given such excellent music and have a
subject for so much profound meditation as the stone.
The road past the church drops steeply down into the pretty village,
and, turning northwards, takes us to the bend of the valley, where North
Burton lies, which we passed earlier in the day; so we go to the left,
and find ourselves at Kilham, a fair-sized village on the edge of the
chalk hills. Like Rudstone and a dozen places in its neighbourhood,
Kilham is situated in a district of extraordinary interest to the
archæologist, the prehistoric discoveries being exceedingly numerous.
Chariot burials of the Early Iron Age have been discovered here, as well
as large numbers of Neolithic implements. There is a beautiful Norman
doorway in the nave of the church, ornamented with chevron mouldings in
a lavish fashion. Far more interesting than this, however, are the fonts
in the two villages of Cottam and Cowlam, lying close together, although
separated by a thinly-wooded hollow, about five miles to the west.
Cottam Church and the farm adjoining it are all that now exists of what
must once have been an extensive village. It is, indeed, no easy matter
to find the place, the church being small and inconspicuous, and the
roads pass it by in total indifference.
We come to a gate by a cottage, isolated in a great space of corn and
root crops, and find it leads down to the big farm of Cottam. A little
beyond it appears a small red brick building of recent date, showing all
the signs of having been locked up and deserted years ago. This is not
the case, however, for it is still in use, although for what other
purpose than as a private chapel for the farmer and his family I can
scarcely imagine. In this depressing little building we find a Late
Norman font of cylindrical form, covered with the wonderfully crude
carvings of that period. There are six subjects, the most remarkable
being the huge dragon with a long curly tail in the act of swallowing
St. Margaret, whose skirts and feet are shown inside the capacious jaws,
while the head is beginning to appear somewhere behind the dragon’s
neck. To the right is shown a gruesome representation of the martyrdom
of St. Lawrence, and then follow Adam and Eve by the Tree of Life (a
twisted piece of foliage), the martyrdom of St. Andrew, and what seems
to be another dragon.
On each side of the bridle-road by the church you can trace without the
least difficulty the ground-plan of many houses under the short turf.
The early writers do not mention Cottam, and so far I have come upon no
explanation for the wiping out of this village. Possibly its extinction
was due to the Black Death in 1349. Mr. Cole of Wetwang thinks it
significant that there were three vicars of his church (five miles to
the south-west) between 1349 and 1352.
It is about four miles by road to Cowlam, although the two churches are
only about a mile and a half apart; and when Cowlam is reached there is
not much more in the way of a village than at Cottam. The only way to
the church from the road is through an enormous stack-yard, speaking
eloquently of the large crops produced on the farm. As in the other
instance, a search has to be made for the key, entailing much
perambulation of the farm.
At length the door is opened, and the splendid font at once arrests the
eye. More noticeable than anything else in the series of carvings are
the figures of two men wrestling, similar to those on the font from the
village of Hutton Cranswick, now preserved in York Museum. The two
figures are shown bending forwards, each with his hands clasped round
the waist of the other, and each with a foot thrown forward to trip the
other, after the manner of the Westmorland wrestlers to be seen at the
Grasmere sports. It seems to me scarcely possible to doubt that the
subject represented is Jacob wrestling with the _man_ at Penuel.
Although the Bible account plainly indicates that Jacob struggled with
some God-like power, yet the actual words used are: ‘And Jacob was left
alone. And there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day,’
and the additional piece of information describing how the patriarch’s
thigh was put out of joint would be sufficient to prompt the Norman
craftsman to give the figure the ordinary form of a man. The carving to
the right shows the Temptation of Adam and Eve, the ‘general father of
us all’ being placed on the opposite side of the tree to the position
given to him at Cottam. Then follow the Massacre of the Innocents--an
ambitious subject; the Visit of the Magi, Mary being shown with the
child on her knee; and a Bishop holding a crozier in his left hand. The
period of this elaborate work would appear to be Late Norman.
At Sledmere, the adjoining village, everything has a well-cared-for and
reposeful aspect. Its position in a shallow depression has made it
possible for trees to grow, so that we find the road overhung by a green
canopy in remarkable contrast to the usual bleakness of the Wolds. The
park surrounding Sir Tatton Sykes’ house is well wooded, owing to much
planting on what were bare slopes not very many years ago, and in the
autumn the orange and red colours of the beeches and the brown carpets
beneath them are so beautiful that the scenery has no touch of sadness
even in November.
The village well is dignified with a domed roof raised on tall columns,
put up about seventy years ago by the previous Sir Tatton to the memory
of his father, Sir Christopher Sykes; the inscription telling how much
the Wolds were transformed through his energy ‘in building, planting,
and enclosing,’ from a bleak and barren tract of country into what is
now considered one of the most productive and best-cultivated districts
of Yorkshire. The late Sir Tatton Sykes was the sort of man that
Yorkshire folk come near to worshipping. He was of that hearty, genial,
conservative type that filled the hearts of the farmers with pride. On
market days all over the Riding one of the always fresh subjects of
conversation was how Sir Tatton was looking. A great pillar put up to
his memory by the road leading to Garton can be seen over half
Holderness. So great was the conservatism of this remarkable squire that
years after the advent of railways he continued to make his journey to
Epsom, for the Derby, on horseback.
A stone’s-throw from the house stands the church, rebuilt, with the
exception of the tower, in 1898 by Sir Tatton. There is no wall
surrounding the churchyard, neither is there ditch, nor bank, nor the
slightest alteration in the smooth turf; and now that all the
gravestones have been laid flush with the grass, the church stands among
the trees for all the world as though it had merely strayed into the
park, and was not fixed to the ground at all. Local opinion made
numerous comments on this wiping out of the churchyard, but the
villagers have received so many good things from the same hands as those
that thus disturbed the memorials of their ancestors, that they have no
grounds for complaint.
The church, designed by Mr. Temple Moore, is carried out in the style of
the Decorated period in a stone that is neither red nor pink, but
something in between the two colours. The exterior is not remarkable,
but the beauty of the internal ornament is most striking. Everywhere you
look, whether at the detail of carved wood or stone, the workmanship is
perfect, and without a trace of that crudity to be found in the carvings
of so many modern churches. The clustered columns, the timber roof, and
the tracery of the windows are all dignified, in spite of the richness
of form they display. Only in the upper portion of the screen does the
ornament seem a trifle worried and out of keeping with the rest of the
work.
Sledmere also boasts a tall and very beautiful ‘Eleanor’ cross, erected
about ten years ago, and has reached a certain fame from Sir Tatton’s
cattle and horses.
As we continue towards the setting sun, the deeply-indented edges of the
Wolds begin to appear, and the roads generally make great plunges into
the valley of the Derwent. The weather, which has been fine all day,
changes at sunset, and great indigo clouds, lined with gold, pile
themselves up fantastically in front of the setting sun. Lashing rain,
driven by the wind with sudden fury, pours down upon the hamlet lying
just below, but leaves Wharram-le-Street without a drop of moisture.
The widespread views all over the Howardian Hills and the sombre valley
of the Derwent become impressive, and an awesomeness of Turneresque
gloom, relieved by sudden floods of misty gold, gives the landscape an
element of unreality.
Against this background the outline of the church of Wharram-le-Street
stands out in its rude simplicity. On the western side of the tower,
where the light falls upon it, we can see the extremely early masonry
that suggests pre-Norman times. It cannot be definitely called a Saxon
church, but although ‘long and short work’ does not appear, there is
every reason to associate this lonely little building with the middle of
the eleventh century. There are mason marks consisting of crosses and
barbed lines on the south wall of the nave. The opening between the
tower and the nave is an almost unique feature, having a Moorish-looking
arch of horseshoe shape resting on plain and clumsy capitals. As for the
churchyard, I have seldom seen anything less cared for, the ground
having practically nothing to differentiate it from the surrounding
meadowland, for it is simply a piece of rough grass, without any paths
or approach suggesting an ordinary village church; and yet there are a
fair number of houses--in fact, more of a nucleus than several of the
smaller hamlets.
The name Wharram-le-Street reminds us forcibly of the existence in
remote times of some great way over this tableland. Unfortunately, there
is very little sure ground to go upon, despite the additional fact of
there being another place, Thorpe-le-Street, some miles to the south.
Evidences of a Roman road going from Malton through Wharram-le-Street
towards Beverley have been discovered, but this and three or four others
are based on slender materials, and are too much built up of conjecture,
to be of great interest. Even the Roman thoroughfare from York towards
Flamborough is not easily discoverable, and the only fact that appears
to be clearly ascertained, besides the unearthing of hoards of Roman
coins, such as the one consisting of 12,000 pieces near Cowlam, on the
line of its supposed route, is the location of the _Derventio_ of the
first Antonine Itinerary at Stamford Bridge. Traces of the important
road southwards from that point have been found at different places on
the way to Brough, where the Humber was crossed by boat.
With the light fast failing we go down steeply into the hollow where
North Grimstone nestles, and, crossing the streams which flow over the
road, come to the pretty old church. The tower is heavily mantled with
ivy, and has a statue of a Bishop on its west face. A Norman chancel
arch with zigzag moulding shows in the dim interior, and there is just
enough light to see the splendid font, of similar age and shape to those
at Cowlam and Cottam. A large proportion of the surface is taken up with
a wonderful ‘Last Supper,’ and on the remaining space the carvings show
the ‘Descent from the Cross,’ and a figure, possibly representing St.
Nicholas, the patron saint of the church.
When the lights of Malton glimmer in the valley this day of exploration
is at an end, and much of the Wold country has been seen; but many other
villages, prehistoric sites, early churches, and beautiful landscapes
lie more to the south. We have seen enough, however, to make it plain
that even an apparently bare plateau of chalk can be full of absorbing
interest as well as considerable charm.
FROM FILEY TO SPURN HEAD