A Month in Yorkshire

CHAPTER XXIV

Sutton: a pretty Village—The Hambleton Hills—Gormire Lake—Zigzags—A Table-Land—Boy and Bull Pup—Skawton—Ryedale—Rievaulx Abbey—Walter L’Espec—A Charming Ruin—The Terrace—The Pavilion—Helmsley—T’ Boos—Kirkby Moorside—Helmsley Castle—A River swallowed—Howardian Hills—Oswaldkirk—Gilling—Fairfax Hall—Coxwold—Sterne’s Residence—York—The Minster Tower—Yorke, Yorke, for my monie—The Four Bars—The City Walls—The Ouse Legend—Yorkshire Philosophical Society—Ruins and Antiquities—St. Mary’s Lodge.

The morning dawns with promise of a glorious day, and of glad enjoyment for us in our coming walk. Our route will lead us through a rich and fertile region to the Hambleton Hills—the range which within the past two weeks has so often terminated our view with its long blue elevations. We shall see another ruin—Rievaulx Abbey, and another old castle at Helmsley—and if all go well, shall sleep at night within the walls of York.

A few miles on the way and we come to Sutton, a pretty village, where nearly every house has its front garden bright with flowers, with tall proud lilies here and there, and standard roses. And every lintel and door-sill is decorated with yellow ochre, and a border of whitewash enlivens even the humblest window. And the inside of the cottages is as clean as the outside, and some have the front room papered. It is truly an English village, for no other country can show the like.

Now the hills stand up grandly before us, showing here and there a scar above the thick woods that clothe their base. The road rises across the broken ground: we come to a lane on the left, marked by a limekiln, and following it upwards between ferny banks and tangled hedges, haunted by the thrush, we arrive presently at Gormire Lake, a pretty sheet of water, reposing in a hollow at the foot of Whitstoncliffe. It is best seen from the bold green bank at the upper end, for there you face the cliff and the hill which rises behind it, covered with copse and bracken. The lake is considerably above the base of the hill, and appears to have been formed by a landslip; it is tenanted by fish, and has, as I heard subsequently at York, a subterranean outlet somewhere among the fallen fragments at the foot of the cliff.

Returned to the road, we have now to ascend sharp alpine zigzags, for the western face of Hambleton is precipitous; and within a short distance the road makes a rise of eight hundred feet. The increasing ascent and change of direction opens a series of pleasing views, and as you look now this way, now that, along the diversified flanks of the hills, you will wish for more time to wander through such beautiful scenery. All that comparatively level country below was once covered by a sea, to which the hills we now stand on opposed a magnificent shore-line of cliffs; some of their summits more than a thousand feet in height.

Great is the contrast when you arrive on the brow: greenness and fertility suddenly give place to a bleak table-land, where the few patches of cultivation appear but meagre amid acres of brown ling. We have taken a great step upwards into a shrewish region. That white patch seen afar is a hunting and training colony, and there go two grooms riding, followed by a pack of hounds. What a chilly-looking place! A back settlement in Michigan could hardly be more lonely. The boys may well betake themselves for amusement to the education of dogs. Was it here, I wonder, that the Yorkshire boy lived who had a bull pup, in the training of which he took great delight? One day, seeing his father come into the yard, the youngster said, “Father, you go down on your hands and knees and blare like a bull, and see what our pup’ll do.” The parent complied; but while he was doing his best to roar like a bull, the dog flew at him and seized him by the lip. Now the man roared in earnest, and tried to shake off his tormentor, while the boy, dancing in ecstacy, cried, “Bear it, father! bear it! It’ll be the makin’ o’ t’ pup.”

By-and-by comes a descent, and the road drops suddenly into a deep glen, crowded with luxuriant woods. Many a lovely view do we get here, as the windings of the road bring us to wider openings and broader slopes of foliage. We pass the hamlet of Skawton; a brook becomes our companion, and woods still shut us in when we cross the Rye, a shallow, lively stream, and get a view from the bridge up Ryedale.

A short distance up the stream brings us to the little village of Rivas—as the country folk call it—and to Rievaulx Abbey. The civil old woman who shows the way into the ruin, will tell you that Lord Feversham does not like to see visitors get over the fence; and then, stay as long as you will, she leaves you undisturbed. What a pleasure awaits you!—a charm which Bolton and Fountains failed alike to inspire: perhaps because of the narrowness of the dale, and the feeling of deep seclusion imparted by the high thickly wooded hills on each side, the freedom allowed to vegetation in and around the place, and to your own movements. The style is Early English, and while surveying the massive clustered columns that once supported the tower, the double rows of arches, and the graceful windows now draped with ivy of the nave, you will restore the light and beautiful architecture in imagination, and not without a wish that Time would retrace his flight just for one hour, and show you the abbey in all its primitive beauty, when Ryedale was “a place of vast solitude and horror,” as the old chronicler says.

Walter L’Espec, Lord of the Honour of Helmsley, a baron of high renown in his day, grieving with his wife, the Lady Adeline, over the death of their only son by a fall from a horse, built a priory at Kirkham, the scene of the accident, and in 1131 founded here an abbey for Cistercian monks. And here after some years, during which he distinguished himself at the Battle of the Standard, he took the monastic vows, and gave himself up to devout study and contemplation until his death in 1153. And then he was buried in the glorious edifice which he had raised to the service of God, little dreaming that in later days when, fortress and church would be alike in ruins, other men would come with different thoughts, though perhaps not purer aims, and muse within the walls where he had often knelt in prayer, and admire his work, and respect his memory.

Much remains to delight the eye; flying buttresses, clerestory windows, corbels, capitals, and mouldings, some half buried in the rank grass and nettles. And how the clustering masses of ivy heighten the beauty! One of the stems, that seems to lend strength to the great column against which it leans, is more than three feet in circumference, and bears aloft a glorious green drapery. An elder grows within the nave, contributing its fair white blossoms to the fulness of beauty. The refectory, too, is half buried with ivy, and there you walk on what was once the floor of the crypt, and see the remains of the groins that supported the floor above: and there at one side is the recess where one of the monks used to read aloud some holy book while the others sat at dinner. Adjoining the refectory is a paddock enclosed by ash-trees, which appears to have been the cloister court. Now the leaves rustle overhead, and birds chirrup in the branches, and swallows flit in and out, and through the openings once filled by glass that rivalled the rainbow in colour.

For two hours did I wander and muse; now sitting in the most retired nook, now retreating to a little distance to find out the best points of view. And my first impression strengthened; and I still feel that of all the abbeys Rievaulx is the one I should like to see again. But the day wore on, and warned me, though reluctant, to depart.

A small fee to the quiet old woman makes her thankful, and prompts her to go and point out the path by which you mount zigzagging through the thick wood to the great terrace near the summit of the hill. It will surprise you to see a natural terrace smooth and green as a lawn, of considerable width, and half a mile in length; that is, the visible extent, for it stretches farther round the heights towards Helmsley. At one end stands a pavilion, decorated in the interior with paintings, at the other a domed temple, and from all the level between you get a glorious prospect up Ryedale—up the dale by which we came from Thirsk, and over leagues of finely-wooded hills, to a rim of swarthy moorland. And beneath, as in a nest, the ancient ruin and the little village repose in the sunshine, and the rapid river twinkles with frequent curves through the meadows.

The gardener who lives in the basement of the pavilion will show you the paintings and a small pamphlet, in which the subjects are described; and perhaps tell you that the family used to come over at times from Duncombe Park and dine in the ornamented chamber. He will request you, moreover, to be careful to shut the gate by which you leave the terrace at a break in the shrubbery.

The road is at the edge of the next field, and leads us in about an hour to Helmsley, a quiet rural town very pleasantly situated beneath broad slopes of wood. It has a good church, a few quaint old houses, some still covered with thatch, a brook running along the street, a market cross, and a relic of the castle built by De Roos, when Yorkshire still wept the Conquest.

It had surprised me while on the way from Thirsk to find more difficulty in understanding the rustic dialect than in the remoter parts of the north and west. The same peculiarities prevail here in the town; and the landlord’s daughter, who waited on me at the house where I dined, professed a difficulty in understanding me. My question about the omnibus for Gilling completely puzzled her for a few minutes, until light dawned on her, and she exclaimed joyfully, “Oh! ye mean t’ boos!”

A few miles east of Helmsley is Kirkby Moorside, where the proud Duke of Buckingham died, though not “in the worst inn’s worst room;” and near it is Kirkdale, with its antiquated church, and the famous cave in which the discovery of the bones of wild animals some thirty years ago established a new epoch for geologists. From Kirkby you can look across to the hilly moors behind Whitby; and if you incline to explore farther, Castle Howard will repay a visit, and you may go and look into the gorge through which the Derwent flows, at Malton, keeping in mind what geologists tell us, that if the gorge should happen to be closed by any convulsion, the Vale of Pickering would again become a sea.

Of Helmsley Castle the remains are but fragmentary; a portion of the lofty keep stands on an eminence, around which you may still trace the hollows once filled by the triple moat. The gateway is comparatively sound, the barbican is sadly dilapidated; and within other parts of the old walls which have been repaired, Lord Feversham’s tenants assemble once a year to pay their rents. The ruin is so pleasantly embowered by trees and ivy, so agreeable for a lounge on a July day, that I regretted being summoned away too soon by “t’ boos” driver’s horn. There was no time for a look at Feversham House, about half a mile distant, nor for a few miles’ walk to Byland Abbey—another Cistercian edifice—founded in 1143 by Roger de Mowbray. I could only glance at the skirts of the park, where preparations were making for a flower-show, and at the shield on the front of the lodge, bearing the motto, Deo, Regi, Patriæ.

The Rye here is a smaller stream than at Rievaulx, owing to the loss of water by the ‘swallows’ in Duncombe Park; half a mile lower down it reappears in full current. But the driver is impatient; we shall be too late for the train at Gilling, and the steep Howardian Hills are to be crossed on the way. Fine views open over the woods; then we leave the trees for a while; a vast prospect appears of the Vale of York, and at Oswaldkirk—a picturesque village—the road falling rapidly brings us once more into a wooded region, and in due time we come to Gilling, on the branch railway to Malton.

There was not time, or I would have run up the hill behind the station to look at the noble avenue of beeches that forms a worthy approach to Fairfax Hall—the home of a family venerated by all who love liberty. I felt an emotion of regret when the station-clerk told me that the present Fairfax is an aged man and childless; for ere long the name will disappear, and the estate become a possession of the Cholmleys.

The train arrives; five miles on it stops at Coxwold, where Sterne passed seven years of his life; then two leagues more, and we have to wait ninety minutes for a train down from the north, at Pilmoor junction—a singularly unattractive spot. Luckily I had a book in my knapsack, and so beguiled the time till the bell rang that summoned us to York.

In my wanderings I have sometimes had the curiosity to try a Temperance Hotel, and always repented it, because experience showed that temperance meant poor diet, stingy appliances, and slovenly accommodations. So it was not without misgivings that I resolved to make one more experiment, and see what temperance meant in the metropolis of Yorkshire. The Hotel, which did not displease me, looks into Micklegate, not far from the Bar on which the heads of dukes and nobles were impaled, as mentioned in the Lay of Towton Field.

Considering how many quartos have been filled with the history and description of York, into how many little books the big books have been condensed, every traveller is supposed to know as much as he desires concerning the ancient city, ere he visits it. For one who has but a day to spare, the best way of proceeding is of course to get on the top of the minster tower, and stay there until his memory is refreshed by the sight of what he sees below. At a height of two hundred feet above the pavement you can overlook the great cluster of clean red roofs, and single out the twenty-five churches that yet remain of the fifty once visible from this same elevation. Clifford’s Tower, a portion of the old castle, stands now within the precincts of the gaol; the line of the city walls can be seen, and the situation of the four Bars; there, by the river, is the Guildhall where King Charles was purchased from the Scots; there the small river Foss, that rises in the Howardian Hills, and once filled the Roman ditches, joins the Ouse. Outside the walls, Severus Hill marks the spot where the emperor, who died here in 210, was burnt on his funeral pile with all the honours due to a wearer of the purple; another hill shows where Scrope was beheaded. To the south lies Bishopthorpe, the birthplace of Guy Fawkes, and residence of the bishops. Eastward is Stamford Brig, where the hard Norwegian king, flushed with victory, lost the battle and his life—where the spoil in gold ornaments was so great, “that twelve young men could hardly carry it upon their shoulders”—whence the victor Harold marched to lose in turn life and crown at Hastings. On the west lies Marston Moor, and farther to the south-west the field of Towton. And then, from wandering afar over the broad vale, your eye returns to the minster itself, and looks down on all its properties, and comfortable residences, snug gardens, and plots of greenest turf, all covering ground on which the Romans built their camp, and where they erected a temple for the worship of heathen deities.

As regards the interior, whatever may have been your emotions of admiration or wonder in other cathedrals, they become fuller and deeper in this of York. After two long visits, I still wished for more time to pace again the lofty aisles, to hear the organ’s rolling notes, while marvelling at the glory of architecture.

In Roger North’s time, as he relates, the interior of the cathedral was the favourite resort of fashionable strollers: in an earlier time, when archery was practised keenly as rifle-shooting in our day, and the prophecy as to the pre-eminence of York was not yet forgotten, a ballad was written in praise of the city: thus

From the minster walk as far as may be along the city walls: you will see the four Bars—Monk, Micklegate, Walmgate, and Bootham; the first-named still retaining the barbican. In some of the narrow lanes near the water-side you may discover old mansions, the residences of the magnates of York two hundred years ago, now tenanted by numbers of working-people, and grand staircases and panelled rooms, looking dingy and squalid. Then go forth and take a turn under the trees of the New Walk on the bank of the Ouse, and see a much-frequented resort of the citizens, who certainly cannot boast that their environs are romantic. You would hardly believe that the stream flowing so placidly by embosoms the rapid rivers we crossed so often while in the mountains. If legends deceive not, any one who came and threw five white pebbles into a certain part of the Ouse as the hour of one struck on the first morning of May, would then see everything he desired to see, past, present, and to come, on the surface of the water. Once a knight returning from the wars desired to see how it fared with his lady-love: he threw in the pebbles, and beheld the home of the maiden, a mansion near Scarborough, and a youth wearing a mask and cloak descending from her window, and the hiding of the ladder by the serving-man. Maddened by jealousy, he mounted and rode with speed; his horse dropped dead in sight of the house; he saw the same youth ascending the ladder, rushed forward, and stabbed him to the heart. It was his betrothed. She was not faithless; still loved her knight, and had only been to a masquerade. For many a day thereafter did the knight’s anguish and remorse appear as the punishment of unlawful curiosity in the minstrel’s lay and gestour’s romance.