Sounding like Christmas

Clair Shields – Planning Policy Officer/Building Conservation Officer

Now that the lights are twinkling and the decorations are up, everywhere you look it is all about Christmas. So with this thought in mind I was intrigued as to what festive sounding names the built environment can offer at this time of year. Below are a few Christmassy sounding historic features found around the North York Moors

Christmas Tree Field, Jingleby – This is a double hit of a Christmas sounding site within Dalby Forest. The archaeology of the wider area is significant and complex. The area includes Bronze Age round barrows, and a number of embanked pit alignments (prehistoric linear boundary earthworks) as well as later banked field boundaries which might be connected with rabbit warrening. There is also documentary record of a Jenglebee Cross but its exact location isn’t known.

Goose I’ Th’ Nest is one of a row of nine boundary stones on Wheeldale Moor, described as a natural boulder or deeply buried slab with letters ‘PCE’ and an illegible date.  Good Goose Thorn is another boundary stone, possibly of medieval origin, located on the parish boundary between Loftus and Glaisdale. Its specific name is recorded on the
1^st edition 6 inch Ordnance Survey Map of 1853

Although these particular boundary stones are not Listed or Scheduled, there are many that are. Boundary stones identify the start of a land boundary or the change in a boundary, especially a change in direction, and are a feature of the North York Moors. They are often marked on the most relevant face with the landowner’s or parish initials to indicate the ownership. Like waymarker stones they would have been important features for people having to cross the moors, defining the route to follow in a landscape which has very few points of reference.

There are a number of features called Stocking – Stocking Craggs, Stocking Dike,
Stocking Lane and Stocking Hill. There are a couple of Stocking Houses – this Stocking House, to the north-west of Westerdale, is a group of unlisted buildings. Although not listed, together these buildings are typical of a traditional North York Moors moorland farmstead – small in scale, linear in form and of stone and pantile construction.

Frost Hall in Farndale is a farmstead with a range of listed farm buildings and a listed
farmhouse dated 1826. The range includes a threshing barn with a horse engine house (for horse powered machinery) attached to the rear. Close by the farmstead there are a number of staddle stones (arranged to lift structures like granaries or haystacks off the ground), the remains of a saw pit (in which to operate a two handed vertical saw for timber) and also a chambered sheep fold which has been used to hold bee hives.

Holly Cottage, Holly Lodge, Holly House – there are plenty of Listed Buildings with this name, presumably there had been a holly tree nearby or otherwise the name sometimes
derives from the word ‘holy’. This one is Holly Cottage in Lythe, a characterful Grade II
eighteenth century house. This building is a good example of how a building has evolved over the years – probably originally a traditional longhouse it has clearly been raised at some point in its history and also extended. The variation in windows style, sizes and their location on this elevation all add to its unique character and adds to its special interest and architectural character and is typical example of the North York Moors vernacular.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from the North York Moors National Park