:•*-<, '.^h 1 \u — i ^. ^«!/0JnV3JO'^ ^j:?i]Dwsoi^ -< ^/5a3AINI13WV^ lOSANCnfj> so -< ^OFCALIF0% ^^OFCAIIFO% ^WEUNIVERi-ZA. vj>;lOSANCElfj> o _ SO tUBRARYQc !/0JllV3J0^ .^WEUNIVER5/A ^XJ130NVS01^ .>;10SANCEI% CO ^IIIBRARY/Jr ^tllBRARYQ^ ^/^ii3AiNa-3\^^ ^^mmyi^ ^,!/ojitvjjo^ JFCAIIFO/?^ ^Aavaaii-^^ AWEUNIVER5"/a .>:WSANCElfj> o .4,0FCAIIF0%, ce tl / >^ A 5 .^OFCAlIF0/?/. v^lOSANGEl% ^ ^ 03 SO >• so .^OFCAIIFO% ill hi ^0FCAIIF0% AV\E-IJNIVER% ^lOSANCElfj> >'(9AaVHgiH^ >&AavaaiH^ ■ = o ^JV130NVS01^ %a3AINn-3WV -s^llIBRARYO^ ^^ '^ '^Aa3AINn-3WV^ ^^Aavaan-^^ ^. -n 9 f ^lOSANCElfjv ■ •» ■ • CO >• SO -< ^lllBRARYOc^ -.^tllBRARYQc %a3AINfl-3\\V^ '%0JnV3-JO-'^ %OJ1W3JO>^ - '^ i^ ^lOSANCElfj-^ 'v/sa3AINa3WV* ^OF-CALIF0% ^ aiBv^^ 6>' ^^5^ 5 v^lOSANCElfj^ "^AaaAiNn-Jwv -^lilBRARY^^ ^tllBRARYQ^:. ILKTI ^iJiliJiS'. (-1 ^lOSANCElfx> ^^.OFCAIIFO^ 3S 5=. ^OFCAllFOff^ ,^V ^rfl ! Urfl CO THE YORKSHIRE COAST Of this large paper edition only 250 copies are printed. This copy is No. Z^^ I" "l . ' ..,.,.,11; THE Yorkshire Coast AND THE CLEVELAND HILLS AND DALES By JOHN LEYLAND Author uf ' The Peak of Derbyshire ' With Illustrations by Alfred Dawson and Lancelot Speed t y. > V • *. » » » '■ « \ LONDON SEELEY AND CO., LIMITED ESSEX STREET, STRAND 1892 ^ ./? n **;' r ;.) ^.J: \} J J • • « • • •• . ..* . • . • . . . • , • • » • • • . • • • • • , ' • • • • j:?A ■.:i in O •s PREFACE The purpose of this book needs to be briefly described. It is descriptive of the Yorkshire coast, and of the north-eastern hills of that great and historic county, >x' and a chief object has been to give to localities which vs are attractive enough in themselves the added interest of the history and the legendary lore that properly belongs to them. The perusal of this book will, indeed, i j show that almost ©very village breathes of history, and f^ that there is a host of notable events whereof the Yorkshire coast and its neighbourhood hold record. Most Yorkshiremen knov/ this very well, and they may be glad to possess a book that will remind them of the interest of localities ; but those who each year resort in great numbers for health and enjoyment to the watering-places of the coast from every part of the kingdom miss, as it seems to the author — saving a few of them — some of the pleasure their wanderings should bring them. There was, indeed, an initial difficulty in the writing of this book. Where should a limit be fixed for the district to be treated ? It must be con- fessed that the boundary chosen is in a manner arbitrary, though it is based upon natural configura- vi Preface tion ; but it was dictated by considerations of space, and to some extent by the convenience with which localities are visited ; but ever as the author went westward something attractive beyond seemed to beckon him on, until at length the far-oif hills of Richmond would have lured him further still. This may serve to explain why a certain fringing district is treated briefly, or merely by allusion — why, for example, Byland Abbey has little more than a mention. In regard to the manner of the book, it seemed to the author that — though it is in no sense a road-book — a ' descriptive wayfaring ' — wherein the wayfarer should by no means hasten when there were historical circum- stances, or legendary stories, or geological conditions to beguile his journey — would, for the most part, be the best for the purpose. He adopted it in a like book upon the * Peak of Derbyshire,' and it received the sanction of general approval. The advantage it presents is this : That it gives a possibility of pic- turesqueness to description, and makes it possible to convey a fuller impression of the characteristics of localities, while in cases where — owing to considera- tions of space or other circumstances — it may be possible merely to name some hamlet or stream, that hamlet or stream will at least be better understood from the picture unfolded of its surroundings as the wayfarer goes forward. And in regard to the con- venience of the arrangement, it may be added that a full index renders access to any part of the book easy. To present a complete picture of the history of the Preface vii region chosen has, of course, been impossible ; but the author's aim will be accomplished if he succeed, by the incidents he has related, in adding something to the appreciation of an important district — his native county. He must express his indebtedness, in the first place, to Canon Atkinson's * Forty Years in a Moorland Parish,' a book of singular fascination, which throws much light upon the early and existing con- ditions of an important part of Cleveland, and also to some extent to the same author's * History of Cleve- land.' To Hinderwell's ' Scarborough ' he is indebted in a less degree, as also to Poulson's ' Beverlac ' — a standard work — and to sundry other works he has named in the book. For many of his facts he has depended upon the ' Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry VHI.,' recently published, which are a veritable historical quarry, and thus his book may include some dramatic episodes scarcely known to the general public. It remains to be added that fragmentary portions of the book have appeared in a series of articles published in the Fort- folio. Elm Lea, Forest Hill, May, 189: CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. INTRODUCTORY ------ i II. THE NORTH CLEVELAND COAST REGION - - 21 III. THE COAST REGION FROM SALTBURN TO WHITBY - 43 IV. WHITBY - - - - - - - 62 V. LOWER ESKDALE - - - - - 79 VI. UPPER ESKDALE- - - - - - 96 VII. THE RYE. — BILSDALE, RIEVAULX, AND HELMSLEY - I15 VIII. THE RYE. — KIRKDALE, AND FARNDALE - - 139 IX. FROM FARNDALE TO THORNTON DALE - - 157 IX. THE COAST FROM WHITBY TO SCARBOROUGH - 181 XI. SCARBOROUGH - - - - - \, 195 XII, THE REGION OF THE UPPER DERWENT - - 224 XIII. THE COAST FROM SCARBOROUGH TO BRIDLINGTON - 243 XIV. THE COAST OF HOLDERNESS - - - - 265 XV. BEVERLEY - - - - - - 282 XVL HULL AND THE HUMBER .... 300 APPENDIX A ----- - 322 APPENDIX B - - - - - - 323 INDEX - - - - - - 327 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS WHITBY {etching) - - - - ON THE CLEVELAND MOORS STAITHES - - - - - RUNSWICK ... - WHITBY HARBOUR THOMASINE FOSS, GOATHLAND - THE ESK IN GLAISDALE - RIEVAULX ABBEY - - - - OLD FRESCOES IN PICKERING CHURCH - ROBIN HOOD'S BAY SCARBOROUGH {etching) - SCARBOROUGH CASTLE - THE COAST AT FILEY - - THE KING AND QUEEN ROCKS, FLAMBOROUGH HEAD BEVERLEY MINSTER {etching) THE MARKET PLACE, BEVERLEY HULL {etching) ----- MAP OF THE NORTH-EAST COAST OF YORKSHIRE MAP OF THE SOUTH-EAST COAST OF YORKSHIRE Fronti spiece To face page 30 » 48 >i 54 » 64 » 90 )) 102 » 123 )» 174 >5 184 JJ 196 >» 202 » 246 EAD „ 256 » 290 » 298 >i 312 )) 334 )) 334 ' And he had trudged through Yorkshire dales, Among the rocks and winding scars ; Where deep and low the hamlets lie Beneath their little patch of sky And little lot of stars : ' And all along the indented coast. Bespattered with the salt-sea foam ; Where'er a knot of houses lay On headland or in hollow bay — Sure never man like him did roam !' Wordsworth : Peter Bell. The Yorkshire Coast and the Cleveland Hills CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY. Definition of the District — Configuration and Geology — The ' Tabular ' and Cleveland Hills— The Esk— The Basalt Dyke- Early Inhabitants— The Evidence of Earthworks and Grave- mounds — The Romans— The Coming of the Angles — Deira — St. Hilda— The Danes — Harald Hardrada — The Conquest and the Wasting of Yorkshire — Mediaeval History — The Pilgrim- age of Grace — The Civil Wars — Character of the Peasantry. The county of York, which contains within its bounds so much of varied and characteristic Enghsh beauty that it might well be described as a ' Little England ' — ' A kingdom that doth seem a province at the least To them that think themselves no simple shires to be,' as Drayton says — falls, nevertheless, into certain natural and well-defined divisions. Through the midst of it, from north to south, runs that great, fruitful, and historic plain, known as the Vale of York, of which I 2 Introductory the northern portion is sometimes described as Mowbray Vale, because of the great lords who once dwelt thereby. Westward, from beneath the new red sandstone and gravel of the vale, rises the glorious region of the mountain limestone, in which are ex- cavated the romantic dales of the Swale, the Ure, and the Nidd ; and southward of this, again, are the sand- stone hills, capped with great moorlands, that range with the elevated tracts of northern Derbyshire. From the eastern outliers of the limestone hills we look far across the Vale of Mowbray to the north- eastern hills, which lie between its fruitful strath and the sea. Here, again, we have a district well defined, lying between the gentle slope that flanks the estuary of the Tees on the north, and the shallow saucer-like Vale of Pickering on the south, in which the waters of the Rye and the Derwent are joined before flowing southward to the Ouse. The Vale of Pickering separates these north-eastern hills from another verj- distinct region — the rounded chalk-hills of the Wolds — which look westward across the great Plain of York, and reach the sea in the huge water-worn cliffs of Flamborough ; and southward of these, again, lies the diluvial district of Holderness, a tract of fragments drifted from far-distant regions, as well as of later lacustrine and peaty deposits. Except in the long, low shore of Holderness, the Yorkshire coast confronts the Northern Sea, and the pitiless blasts of the north-east wind, with grim escarp- ments of seamed and shattered rock, from which the Introductory 3 rude violence of the tempest has hurled down, here and there, the rugged undercliff that lies below. It throws out huge headlands that half encircle, with their protecting arms, its lovely ' wykes ' and bays, and it thrusts far out to sea the hoary scarps of Flam- borough, that seem, like some ancient weather-beaten foeman, to bid stern defiance to the storm. What may appear at first weird and forbidding in this rocky coast-line, discloses, nevertheless, when we explore its recesses, rare beauties of luxuriant vegetation in the deep sylvan glens of the northern hills, through which peat- stained streamlets, from the lofty heather-clad moorlands beyond, run their brawling course to the sea ; and it opens for us, beneath the venerable ruins of Whitby, the glorious Valley of the Esk, through which we may reach, amid scenes of surpassing wood- land loveliness, the breezy Cleveland moors. Be it noted that variety is a distinctive feature of this coast, chiefly owing to the southern dip of the strata, which causes the successive formations, chiefly Jurassic, to emerge northward towards Whitby. From beneath the low ' boulder ' cliffs of the long coast of Holderness, the chalk, rising beyond Bridlington, forms the mighty mass of Flamborough Head ; and then, turning inland towards the Wolds, is succeeded by the Speeton clay, opposite the Vale of Pickering, and the coralline oolite strata, to which are due the new characters of the rocks of Filey and Scarborough. Beyond these, again, the sandstones, with bands of coal and shale, emerging, give distinctive features, by their sharply-everted ends. 4 Iiit7'oductory to the southern cheek of Hayburn Wyke, and rise to the northern elevations of the long cliffs of Stainton Dale. Still advancing, the lias formation comes to the surface, forced upward by a dislocation, stretches along the length of Robin Hood's Bay, and, in con- junction with the superimposed strata, gives their character to the great escarpments north of Whitby. According to the nature of the formation, too, is the varied wasting effect of the sea and the storm upon them. The diluvial coast of Holderness is being eaten away with almost measurable rapidity, so that parishes which are mentioned in Domesday lie now beneath the sea, the names of vanished villages are yet recorded upon the maps, and the lacustrine deposits of the interior are exposed upon the shore. The materials which are thus washed away are carried southward, and serve to build up the pebbly isthmus of the Spurn, which is maintained by the nicely- balanced action of the Humber and the sea, and, though but a shifting bank, is perhaps the most durable portion of the coast of Holderness. The chalky mass of Flamborough is deeply worn into twilight caves and fantastic isolated pinnacles, while the sandstones to the north seem to be wasted as much by aerial denudation, and scatter their fragments upon the lower shore ; but further north still, upon the rise of the lias shale, there are water-worn caves again, which — less durable than those in the chalk — have undermined the cliffs, and thrown them down in huge masses into the surf. Introductory 5 This region of the north-eastern hills — which forms a principal part of our subject — presenting, as we have said, its lofty cliffs to the sea, looks also, with wooded hills over the sloping meadows towards the estuary of the Tees, with greater heights and wider prospects, across the Vales of Mowbray and York, and, from gentle slopes, across the Vale of Pickering to the Wolds. It is, however, a region divided into two very distinct hilly tracts. The first of these rises pleasantly in umbrageous slopes from beneath the recent deposits of the Vale of Pickering, and is known as that of the ' tabular,' or calcareous oolitic, hills, which, characterized by their flat-topped heights, and completely intersected by the tributary dales of the Rye, present, between them, to the northward — to the declivities of the more lofty moorland area of the Cleveland hills, in which the tributary streamlets have their source — a series of remarkable bluffs and escarp- ments, at whose base it is not difficult to fancy once dashed the waves of the sea. The principal heights in this range increase as we go westward — from 270 feet at Gristhorpe Cliffs, 500 feet at Oliver's Mount and Seamer Moor, 700 feet at Brompton Moor, overlook- ing Trcuts Dale, and 783 feet at High Dalby, to 1,078 feet at Rievaulx Moor, and 1,289 feet at Black Ham- bleton. The second range of the north-eastern hills — the Cleveland Hills themselves — which, by their great precipices and rocky cliffs, have given its name to the district — the Kliflond of the Norsemen — is of the 6 Introductory carboniferous, lower oolite and lias formations, rest- ing upon the red marl and sandstone, and reaches its greatest altitude in the moorlands south of the Esk. The principal heights of the great ridge, parting the watersheds of the Rye and the Esk, going from west to east, are: At Urra Moor, 1,489 feet, Westerdale Moor, 1,422 feet, Ralph Cross, 1,409 feet, near Danby Head, 1,419 feet, Glaisdale Moor, 1,318 feet, and Egton High Moor, 1,071 feet. Northward of the Esk, by which the moorland tract is cleft in twain, the chief altitudes are, at Guisborough Moor, 1,078 feet, Brown Hill, 929 feet, and Danby Beacon, 988 feet. These lofty hills of Cleveland, through whose moor- land dells many a peaty streamlet winds its course, and, by rocky gorges and sylvan shades, flows down both to the Esk and the shore, form a fitting back- ground, with a character near akin, to the might}' scarps and rugged steeps that are their buttress against the sea. Their elevated and lonely moorlands, where the dwelling-places of men are few, have a subtle dis- tinction of their own ; there is something of the vast, the wild, and the weird upon them ; and — though all but a tithe of their beauty will escape the speeding wayfarer — they will not fail to impress him with a sense of stern magnificence ; while, in the wooded ravines and rocky passes by which they are cleft, he cannot choose but linger, and cannot wish but to return. The Esk follows for some distance the line of the great dislocation of the strata, whereby the hills to the north are depressed — there is another great fault at Introductory J the southern cheek of Robin Hood's Bay — and it flows over the great whinstone, trap, or basalt dyke, which, from beyond Cockfield Fell, in Durham, to near the coast at Whitby, a distance of some sixty miles, has been extruded through the strata — in Yorkshire through the new red sandstone, the lias, and the lower oolite — and has left conspicuous traces in the soil. This marvellous dyke, in a line almost perfectly rectilinear, enters our district a little south of Roseberry Topping, crosses Kildale moors, and part of Sleddale and Com- mondale, and reaches Castleton, whence it continues, passing the Esk twice in its course, to Parker Houe, above the south bank of the river, near Crunkley Gill, further on to Egton Bridge, Lease Rigg, near Goath- land Station, Silhoue, Whinstone Ridge (as the Ordnance map describes it), Blea Hill, and Biller Houe, and loses itself at last in Fylingdales Moor. What is the depth of this great cleft, through which the molten matter has been forced upward, it is use- less to speculate ; but it is found at every altitude between 25 feet and 975 feet above the sea, and its width varies from 35 to 45 feet, but in some cases to as much even as 70 feet. Our knowledge of the early conditions of the York- shire coast is scanty indeed, but it seems possible to discern dimly, through the mists of that long-past history, the traces of a double invasion, or, at least, of an occupation and an invasion. The investigations of General Pitt Rivers have shown that the so-called Danes' Dyke across the base of Flamborough Head 8 Introductory was a defensive work thrown up by an invader — the Celtic incomer (the so-called ' Brython '), as we suppose — who secured thus a base of operations against the Gael (or ' Goidel '), and that, advancing further, this invader formed successively the Argam Lines, and the Scamridge Dykes. The entrenchments that can be traced along the edges of the Wolds, upon the hills overlooking the Vale of Pickering, and across the moorland ridges south of the Esk, are probably all evidences of early strife between the Celt and the Gael for the possession of this part of Yorkshire. The houes and grave-mounds upon the hills are apparently the work of the Celtic settlers, and they would seem to indicate a higher degree of civilization than has sometimes been suspected. Some of them are of very large size, approaching even loo feet in diameter; and they were not merely thrown up, as might have been supposed, but were laid by gradual accretion, with a regular stratification of vari-coloured materials, sometimes brought from a considerable distance. It would appear that the bodies were invariably cremated, and the remains deposited upon the natural surface, often covered or accompanied by an urn, and some- times protected by an erection of stones. As to the ' British villages ' which are so freely marked upon the Ordnance map, we cannot doubt, after the investiga- tions of Canon Atkinson, that they were, in fact, excavations made much later for working the iron- stone, on the ' bell-pit system.' Many weapons belong- ing to this early time have been discovered — flint Introductory 9 blades in profusion at Bridlington, others at Seamer Moor, Pickering, and elsewhere, with axe-heads, arrow- joints, and ' sling-bullets,' as well as dagger-blades (as with the skeleton and oaken coffin exhumed at Gris- thorpe), and other implements of bronze.* It would not appear that the moorland fastnesses of Cleveland were ever brought under real subjection by the Romans, but a military road passing north-east- ward from York, through Malton, and leaving Picker- ing on the east, ascended to the camps at Cawthorn, and crossed the heights by Flamborough Rigg and Manley Cross into Wheeldale, keeping by July Park, where Roman remains have been discovered, above the left banks of the Wheeldale Beck and the Mirk Esk, to a camp on Lease Rigg overlooking Eskdale, then crossed the river near Grosmont, probably sending down a branch to Whitby, and passed on by Swart Houe Cross probably to Dunsley, and to a series of camps on the heights overlooking the lower country and the sea. Malton was an important Roman station, in direct communication by road with Ehoracum (York), Isurium (Aldborough), and C ataractonium (Thornbrough, * A most interesting account of houe-digging in Cleveland will be found in Canon Atkinson's ' Forty Years in a Moorland Parish.' Many urns and relics discovered by that patient investigator are now in the British Museum, and the early history of the Yorkshire coast and the neighbouring hills is further illustrated in the museums of York, Scarborough, Whitby, and Hull. An article on ' The Weapons of the Ancient Tribes of Yorkshire,' by Mr. H. Syer Cumming, in \}i\& Journal of the British Archceological Association, 1 864, may be referred to. lO Int7'od2ictory near Catterick) ; and a road has been traced south- eastward from it by Wharram-le-Street to the Wolds, pointing direct to Beverley, then a port, and, as some have surmised, the Pctuaria of the Romans. Roman roads also approached the coast in the neighbourhood of Filey and Bridlington. Dunsley Bay, north of Whitby, may perhaps have been the Diiniim Sinus of the Romans, and some have chosen to see the Partus Felix in the bay of Filey or Bridlington, while it seems not unlikely that Flam- borough Head was the Ocellum Promontorium, though here, again, some have applied that name to the Spurn. It is not to be imagined that the Romans, who had crushed Carthage by gaining dominion in the Medi- terranean, and whose invasion of Britain was made possible by the destruction of the maritime power of the Veneti, would be content to entrust the defence of the coast merely to camps overlooking the shore. We cannot doubt, indeed, that their galleys often put into the harbours of the Yorkshire coast, for we know that even Stilicho, the last of the Roman generals to wield effectively the decaying Roman power in Britain, was able, with his galleys, to sweep the freebooters of the narrow seas even to the distant Orkney Isles. But upon the departure of the Romans the power of resistance to the marauders from the sea soon passed away, and the Angles, sweeping along the coast, having captured the city of Lindum (Lincoln), pushed up the Humber, and the network of its tributary rivers. Introdndory 1 1 established the kin/^^dom of the Middle English, seized and wasted the * altera Roma ' of York, burnt and slew through the great central plain, and set up, in the region this book will treat of, the dominion of the Deiri. If we may believe Matthew of Westminster, Ida, the ' flame-bearer,' landed at Flamborough, with his twelve sons in forty keels, to found the Bernician kingdom (547 a.d.) ; but it is safer to conclude that the Bernicians made their way by the Valley of the Tweed. Their forces were measured against the Deirans in that fierce struggle with which the con- soHdation of our existing England began, and the kingdom of Northumbria grew from the fusion of Deira with Bernicia. It is pleasant to think that from these very hillsides of the Deiran kinsfolk — may we say from the Wolds, or the wooded heights that slope down to the Vale of Pickering ? — those youths were ravished whose fair faces awoke the apostolic zeal of Gregory in the market- place of Rome. It is pleasant, at any rate, to fancy this, when we remember the expression of Gregory, 'Non angli, sed angeli!' when he heard the strangers were Angles. 'Whence come they?' he asked, and, being told by the slave-masters they were from Deira, ' Ay, verily,' he replied, ' are they dc ira, delivered from the wrath to come, and called to the mercy of Christ !' The preaching of Christianity followed, and later in this book we shall relate the history of Hilda's celebrated monastery, the Lamp of the North, on the cliff of Streoneshealh. The site was doubtless chosen 1 2 Introductory because of its accessibility by sea, and we have, indeed, a record of ancient seafaring therefrom, when, in 684, after the death of St. Hilda, the Abbess ^Ifleda sailed from Streoneshealh to hold speech with St. Cuthbert at Coquet Isle. It was this ancient journey that suggested to Scott the famous voyage to Lindisfarne, and let it not count to the disadvantage of him — nihil tetigit quod non ornavit — that he pictured it far later, at a mediaeval date : ' It curled not Tweed alone, that breeze, For far upon Northumbrian seas It freshly blew, and strong ; Where, from high Whitby's cloistered pile, Bound to St. Cuthbert's Holy Isle, It bore a bark along.' It was from Whitby that learning was spread abroad through the North, and we shall see in this book how John, the fifth Archbishop of York, a disciple of Hilda, founded another home of learning at Beverley in the Sylva Deirorum, the Deirwald, or Wood of the Deirans. Dr. Atkinson has contended, with a considerable degree of probability, from the evidence of place-names, folk-lore, and dialect, that the Angles never effected a complete occupation of the Cleveland hills. In fact, in addition to the ' hams ' and ' tuns ' of Holderness, the Vale of Pickering, and the hills flanking it on either side, we find there a long series of names showing clearly a systematic occupation by the Danes. Freeburgh Hill may, indeed, speak of the * frithborh,' the peace-bond or frank-pledge, of the Angles ; but Introductory i J) Thingwala, the designation of a place occurring in the Whitby Register, speaks just as plainly of the ' thing,' or free-court, of the Danes. Equally significant are Odinberg, the mediaeval name of Roseberry Topping, and Thordisa, now East Row, near Whitby, embodying the Scandinavian female name Thordis, with the suffix a, meaning a stream, while the ' by ' or settlement severally of Orm, Asolf, Norman, Ailward, Ugleberd, Bergulf and Dane is indicated in the existing or recorded place-names of Ormesby, Aislaby, Normanby, Elwordeby, Ugglebarnby, Bergleby and Danby. The Scandinavian invaders, who devasted Beverley and Whitby under Inguar and Hubba about the year 867, have left, too, in the numerous * wicks ' of the York- shire coast the reminiscence of the ' viks ' of their own home-land. Of the coming of Harald Hardrada, we read in his * Saga ' that he first made the coast of Cleveland — the cliff land — where all men fled from him, and then fared southward to Scarborough, dealing with that place in a manner to be spoken of later in this book. ' Kom Haralldr Konung thar fyrst ath Einglande er Kliflond heita og flydi allt vndan Konung for so sudr til Skardaborgar.' With the Norman Conquest our Yorkshire district fared very ill. In Holderness, the great Earls Morkere and Tostig, with Ulf, the benefactor to York, and many more, were replaced by Drogo de Beurere, the Fleming, and afterwards by Odo, Earl of Albemarle. In Cleveland, the thegns, whose names bespeak their 14 Introductory varied origin — Eadmund, Uctred, Magbanec, Levenot (perhaps the same who had the Derbyshire holdings of Edensor, Hathersage and Ballidon), Gamel, Ligulf, Orm, Siward, Waltheof, Torchil, and many more — gave place to the king and his thegns, and to Hugh, Earl of Chester, Robert Malet, William de Percy, Hugh Fitz-Baldric, and the Earl of Mortain (who also had Helmsley), and the great fee of Robert de Brus was carved out later. The same story of dis- placement reigns throughout. But what was more terrible than any mere displacement of landowners was the terrible harrying and wasting that marked the vengeance of the Conqueror for the revolt of 1068. With the unerring judgment that prompted him in the administration of naval affairs, William saw that the strength of the revolt lay in the presence of Swein's fleet in the Humber, and, swearing ' by the splendour of God ' to avenge himself, he first procured its withdrawal, and then turned in destructive fury upon the North, and especially upon the coast, which might otherwise have held out temptations to the Danes. The story of that terrific wasting, in which villages and towns were turned desolate, the crops burned, the cattle slaughtered, and the implements of husbandry scattered in fragments, so that famine followed upon destruction, is too well known to need repetition here. The words ' Wasta est,' often re- peated in the Domesday Survey, mark the extent of the ravaging, and, with Professor Freeman, we may dismiss the story that the Conqueror spared Beverley Introductory 1 5 because of fear of or reverence for St. John. ' Eleven sokemen and two hundred and twenty-five villans and bordars !' exclaims Canon Atkinson in his ' History of Cleveland,' ' working among them no more than fifty- eight ploughs, in all of what is now well-peopled, well- tilled Cleveland !' We must deal all too briefly with the circumstances subsequent to the Conquest that concern our chosen region, not in the vain hope of doing justice to them, but that what follows may gain somewhat by our survey. The wave of religious enthusiasm that digni- fied and elevated the century after the coming of the Normans had its highest flood in the very region that William had wasted, and covered Yorkshire with the splendours of monastic architecture. At the touch of the Benedictine hand the vacant walls of Whitby, which had been silent since the scourging of Inguar and Hubba, were invested with new magnificence, and, despite the seafaring marauders, whose harrying drove the abbot and his monks to their cell of Hackness for a time in the reign of WiUiam 11. , the abbey grew and flourished. The Cistercians built the splendid houses of Rievaulx and Byland, and many more to which it is beyond our scope here to refer ; to the Augustinians we owe Kirkham, Guisborough and Bridhngton ; and the Preaching Friars and the Friars Minor secured their homes at Scarborough, Beverley, and elsewhere, and in 1291 were preaching for the Crusade. The v/ar with the Scots brought pitiable trouble 1 6 Introdtictory upon the North of England, and the terrible harrying of Northumberland and Cumberland in 1296 and 1297 drove the Augustinians of Hexhamshire to seek a home with their brethren at Bridlington. For some time Yorkshire itself escaped, but in 1318 the Scots swept southward, slaying and plundering, and the Black Douglas burnt Scarborough, and a fine was levied upon Beverley ; in the following year the ' Chapter of Myton ' took place ; in 1322 the harrying of the north-eastern dales drove the nuns of Rosedale to seek shelter else- where, and in 1327 the great Cleveland lords, Peter de Maulay, William de Thweng, and John de Falcon- berg were summoned to the muster at York. The nobles had built themselves castles in places of strategical vantage, and we shall refer in this volume to those of Skelton and Kilton at the northern outliers of the hills, to that of Mulgrave and the royal castle of Scarborough upon the coast, to the remarkable series of castles that kept guard over the dales that open from the north upon the Vale of Pickering — Ayton, Pickering, Kirbymoorside, and Helmsley — as well as to many more. The great plague of 1349 visited Yorkshire most severely, and the clergy were insufficient for their duties. ' The numerous vacancies recorded in the livings during the 3'ear show that the Yorkshire priests had fallen like leaves before the gale,' says Canon Raine. ' They at least did not shrink from the performance of their duty. Arch- bishop Zouche himself escaped unscathed, but from the circumstance that he made his will in the year of Introducto7'y 1 7 the great sickness, we can see that he was not un- prepared to share the fate of so many of his clergy.'* When we come to speak of Scarborough, we shall recount a remarkable piratical episode that occurred there in 1377, which will serve to show the unsafe condition of the seas at the time. We pass on in this brief survey to the Pilgrimage of Grace (1536). The region to which this book is devoted was deeply stirred by the events that followed the dissolution of the monasteries, and we shall see how much of historic interest relating to them belongs to the Yorkshire coast and its neighbouring hills. Aske, Darcy, and the other leaders drew, indeed, much of their strength from this region, Sir Robert Con- stable, of Flamborough, raised the surrounding country, and Sir John Bulmer awoke the flame further north. Readers of this book, when incidents connected with this rising are referred to, will remember the course of it — how the commons of Holderness, and the coast generally, were attached to the cause, and ho\\ Hull was taken ; how the victorious pilgrims laid down their arms at the coming of the king's pardon, from which, indeed, certain men of Beverley were excepted, and declared * they would wear no badge but that of their sovereign lord ;' how they were deceived and outwitted by Norfolk and the king; how Sir Francis Bigod, of Mulgrave, fanned the flame anew, and with Hallam attempted to seize both Hull and * '^Historical Papers and Letters from the Northern Registers,' xxxi. 2 1 8 Introductory Scarborough, and, finally, how terrible was the vengeance that followed, in which gibbets bore their melancholy burdens by the roadside, and terror-stricken widows stole out at night-time to cut down the bodies of their husbands, that they might bury them secretly ere dawn, while the leaders laid their heads upon the block — Sir Robert Constable being hanged in chains at Hull — and one lady among them was given to the tiames. In the Civil Wars, our Yorkshire coast region played a considerable part, and the feeling of the people, which will be illustrated as we deal with places where it was manifested, was exceedingly strong. The double treachery of the Hothams, first to the king and then to the Parliament, with the desperate defence of Fairfax against Newcastle's powerful attack, has given special character to the operations at Hull. It was at Bridlington that Queen Henrietta Maria landed, convoyed by Van Tromp, when she returned to England after her expedition to dispose of the crown jewels abroad. The two sieges of Scarborough, more- over, in the first of which it held out so late as July, 1645, are notable incidents connected with the region we have chosen. The Cavaliers here certainly found much support, and during the Commonwealth the privateers of the Royalists were often operating upon the coast. All these, and many more, historical circumstances will be recounted as we go on, in order to beguile and make more interesting our descriptive wayfaring along Intro dtictory 19 the Yorkshire coast and amid the north-eastern hills. It is a region whose heights are haunted by memories, and whose dales are full of history. The very people, by their rugged speech, their blue eyes, and their hardy sun-browned or sea-tanned skins, bespeak a near kinship with the Dane. They are a very pleasant folk, too, to journey amongst. The wayfarer along the country roads may meet, perhaps, a teamster with a load of corn, or a farmer trotting homeward, or it may be a labourer bearing upon his shoulders a huge bundle of the stems of burnt heather, or, as he will call it, ' ling,' which he has gathered upon the moor, and which will make excellent * kindling' for his housewife's lire ; but he may be assured of a pleasant greeting or a cheery word, and if he ask information, the Yorkshireman will certainly give it to him, and sometimes will go ' agate'ards ' with him along the road, or otherwise help him on his way. The frank and ready courtesy of the Yorkshire peasantry is indeed a pleasant experience to the stranger, and it has happened to the writer of this to be made welcome and to receive unsolicited hospitality and good cheer at a farmhouse where the brown harvestmen, at their mid-day meal, were doing ample justice to a huge Yorkshire pie. In such company the wayfarer is likely to hear many a shrewd remark and quaint say- ing, for has not Mr. Baring-Gould recorded the observation of a friend to the effect that ' every other Yorkshireman is a character ' ? Yet character is apt to be brushed away by the levelling influence of the 20 Introductory board-school, and the conventional necessities of a ' code,' and it is to be feared that there are not a few even in Yorkshire who are shame-faced at the homely wisdom and rustic speech of their honest, down-right, plain-spoken sires. Still, however, happily, in lonely valleys and sequestered hamlets upon the hills lingers a quaint flavour of the eld, and he who can win the confidence — no easy task, let us say — of the Yorkshire peasantry, may even now hear an echo of the witch- craft-time, of elves, and hobs, and fairies, of the ' gabble-ratchet ' that is the forewarning of death, and of many another ' eldritch ' thing, to certain of which, in this book, some reference may be made. CHAPTER II. THE NORTH CLEVELAND COAST REGION. The Northern Plain — Coatham and Redcar — Marske — Saltburn — Huntcliff— The Skelton Glen — Skelton Castle and the House of Brus — Country Roads — Upleatham and Kirkleatham— Wilton Castle — The Bulmers and the Pilgrimage of Grace — Eston Nab — Ironstone Quarries — Guisborough — The Augus- tinian Priory— Roseberry Topping, and the Prospect therefrom. The Tees — having left behind it the racing flats of Mandale Bottoms, and having glided, with strange reflections upon its darkened waters, by the fiery town of Middlesborough, where its course is flanked by blazing blast furnaces and wide-spreading steel works, by long stretches of refuse from iron-smelting, and dark lengths of land reclaimed from its waters, by docks crowded with varied craft, and by yards where ship- wrights are busy — escapes from its lurid, fretful sur- roundings into the broad, sandy expanse of Tees Mouth. Beyond Tod Point and Bran Sand the York- shire coast trends south-eastward, and for many a long mile is yet low and of the superficial ' drift,' and one may gallop, without drawing rein, along its broad, level sands. It presents as yet nothing picturesque 2 2 The North Cleveland Coast Region i> • from the sea, but beyond it rise the bold form of Eston Nab and the wooded heights of Upleatham, from which the ironstone is largely won that has given a varied measure of prosperity to the whole country-side. Between the hills and the Northern Sea hes a pastoral countr}', without special features, rising gradually to the foot of the heights. From these outliers of the Cleveland hills, from the height of Upleatham, and still better from the crest of Eston Nab (800 feet) to the westward of it, there is a vast prospect of this lower country, and of the sea, with the Durham coast beyond. Below us, as we stand on the heights, it is not difficult to understand that much was marsh before systematic drainage began. There, away to the north, at the very angle of Tees Mouth, Goatham Marsh still preserves the character. Nay, there still remains, upon the edge of it, that ' camp of refuge by the Tees,' as we cannot doubt, with its earthen ramparts inclosing a space some 90 feet square, protected, as Professor Freeman describes it, on every side by marsh or sea, and approached only by a narrow causeway of dry land, whereon the last uncrushed remnant of the Cleveland folk — the band of marauders, as Ordericus calls them — thought to make their last stand against the Conqueror after his terrific harrying of their dales. It is not surprising, in old times, in a marshy country like this, that fishing should have been more profitable than agriculture ; and, indeed, we find that, upon the partition of the great Brus fee, at the end of the reign The North Cleveland Ccast Region 23 of Henry III. — a circumstance to be referred to here- after — the boats at Cotum and Rideker are recorded as being paid for at the rate of twelve shilHngs, while the value of an acre of arable was but eightpence, and of an acre of meadow but fourteen - pence. East Coatham and Redcar, in these days, stretch their long, unpicturesque conjoined length upon the outermost angle of the shore ; and with their firm level sands, and dry, bracing air, their twin piers, and other attrac- tions, have secured a large measure of popularity, chiefly among the holiday-makers of Stockton and Middlesborough. The whole district below the hills is of the ' drift,' or boulder clay ; but off the coast at Redcar the lower lias shale crops out in reefs — the West Scar and the Salt Scar, with the Goat Hole between them, and the High Stone, and the East and West Flashes, to the south of these. From our point of vantage upon the hill we follow the coast-line south-eastward of Redcar, closely accom- panied by the railway from Middlesborough, to where, two miles further on, the boulder cliffs rising to a height of about 50 feet, the village of Marske is seen, standing by a brooklet that there makes its way to the sea. It is a pleasant, sequestered little place, visited by few, with a Jacobean hall, with cupolas and many mullioned windows, built by Sir William Pennyman, in the time of Charles I., and now the residence of the Ven. Archdeacon Yeoman, as well as a modern church of Continental aspect, and an old one where Captain Cook's father lies buried. Indeed, the whole of the country 24 The North Cleveland Coast Region hereabout is filled with the memories of James Cook. They talk of him much at Marton, where he was born ; the house which his father built is pointed out at Great Ayton, beneath the western slopes of the Cleveland hills ; and we shall presently speak of Staithes and "Whitby, where he first became a seafarer. The ' old church ' at Marske, however, is not older than the year 1821, when it replaced a Norman structure, with a nave and aisles, separated from it by semicircular arches, resting upon round pillars. The destruction of this church is the first instance we have had to note of the lamentable ignorance and blind folly of church- wardens and others who, from fifty to a hundred years ago, swept away with ruthless hand much of the historical architecture of Cleveland. A relic of this church remains, in a square Norman font, charac- teristically carved, which once graced the vicarage lawn, doing duty as a flower-pot ! In the summer-time, when the sands hereabout are flecked with the shadows of clouds, and when the sea- gulls ride upon the billows, and the air has a salty savour, the coast is delightful enough ; but it does not begin to assume its true character of sweetness and grandeur until we reach Saltburn, some two miles further on, where the cliff rises to the height of about 100 feet. There, issues the first of those deep wood- land gorges through the hills for which the Yorkshire coast is famous. You cannot know their beauty unless you traverse them. Walking upon the breezy hills, indeed, you would scarcely suspect their presence ; The North Cleveland Coast Region 25 but, with almost startling suddenness, their sylvan depths are disclosed, and you hear the mellow voice of the rushing stream. Many such delightful glens will occupy our pen in this book, but, perhaps, none leads to places so interesting as we shall reach by ascending the Skelton Beck — once known as the Hole- beck — from Saltburn. It is this fact, combined with its glorious sands, bracing air, splendid coast scenery, and woodland beauties, that makes Saltburn one of the most attrac- tive of the Yorkshire watering-places. Saltburn-by- the-Sea is built upon the bluffs to the west of the ravine at the seaward termination of the flanking hills of the North Yorkshire moors, which trend away inland in a somewhat southerly curve to Roseberry Topping, having, between them and the plain described above, a series of detached and wooded hills, cut off from them by an upland hollow. Eastward of the mouth of the ravine rises the remarkable conical height of Cat Nab, with the primitive village of Old Saltburn at its foot, a place where the facilities for smuggling were once taken full advantage of, and consisting still of a few fishermen's cottages. Beyond the village, the long, dark scarps of Huntcliff, consisting of the lower lias shale, with the ironstone and marlstone series superimposed, rising to a height of 350 feet, lift their weather-beaten faces, seamed and worn by unnumbered storms ; and at every tide the waves deposit in the hollows and crannies of the Flat Scar, which lies at their feet, and stretches from the Penny Hole, by Bird 26 The North Cleveland Coast Region