From strength to strength

Note from Maria (Land of Iron Cultural Heritage Officer) – Through the Land of Iron Landscape Partnership Scheme we’ve organised a number of historic building volunteer events ranging from lime mortar workshops to surveying. One of our volunteers was Dr Ian Wyre who has a PhD from Northumbria University as part of the Virtual Medieval Newcastle project. Ian attended almost every task and demonstrated high potential and a strong background. Because of this he was selected to attend a week’s training event with Historic England and subsequently undertook initial surveying alongside core staff ahead of conservation works. From then Ian has gone from strength to strength and gained a hard sought after position with an archaeological consultancy. So we at the Land of Iron could not be more proud – we wish him well on what will undoubtedly be a successful career ahead.

Ian very kindly agreed to write about his time volunteering and to share his enthusiasm…

Dr Ian Wyre – one time North York Moors Volunteer now Historic Buildings Officer with Archaeological Research Services Ltd

Since living in the north east I had always been on the doorstep of the North York Moors, however it was a place you would visit only for day trips and holidays. A Facebook post calling for heritage volunteers for help with This Exploited Land of Iron project has given me a new, lasting connection with the National Park and its unique heritage.

At the time I had found myself long-term un-employed and, as many people find out, this can become isolating and significantly affect your overall wellbeing. I grew up with language and other neurological difficulties which had also come to the fore at this point in my life. At this time, re-starting any sort of career seemed out of reach; there was a lot I thought couldn’t do and any change seemed overwhelming. The Facebook post however, came across as something I could do. It was an invitation to be involved with historic building conservation of the industrial monuments found throughout the ‘Land of Iron’ area, the North York Moors.

Through the support of the project, guided by its Cultural Heritage Officer, Maria, my volunteering offered a varied sets of tasks encompassing a wide scope of heritage skills, arranged around the National Lottery funded Landscape Partnership Scheme project.  It was all built on a practical, hands-on and welcoming basis (something necessary for me at that point!), open to all ages and abilities, set in the stunning National Park.

Joining the project, within months I had learnt to repair with lime mortar through to high tech laser-scanning of historic structures. A highlight for me that summer was the archaeological dig at Goathland Incline. Within the trench I worked in were foundations continuing below almost a metre and a half depth from the surface. The team of enthusiastic and hardworking volunteers and staff had found the substantial remains of stone walls for the engine house, as well the wagon turntable, with which to piece together the previously little known history of the site. The dig took place with visits from many a walker along the old track bed and the sound of steam trains from the nearby North York Moors Railway, aspects which all added to the experience.  Another highlight has been contributing to the Historic Building Recording with Kim, the project’s Cultural Heritage Assistant. Some of this included survey of the enormous ruins for the iron kilns lining the sides of the stunning Rosedale valley. These contrast to the human scale of the workers cottages which help to tell an almost disappeared social story of the area.

For me, primarily, the project has added to the tapestry of the stunning North York Moors landscape. The remnants of the immense and historic ironstone industry scattered amongst the peaceful, green and idyllic landscape feeds the imagination. Seemingly not so long ago, the sky was orange and black from the ever-burning furnaces which roared above the clatter and squeal of railway trucks. The conservation the project has achieved of the archaeological remains will keep this rich industrial history for generations to discover for years to come.  For me, the project also enabled a step to finding work with an archaeology company. I have been a historic buildings project officer for a year now. Even when the work was difficult the hands-on skills the project brought me form the day-to-day basis of my role. This Exploited Land of Iron truly forged links for me and others with the North York Moors National Park and its important heritage.

If you want to get involved with the Land of Iron or might be interested in any other volunteer opportunities please contact our Volunteer Service.

Lost men of Goathland

Tom Stephenson – External Funding Officer

“Perhaps some day the sun will shine again,
And I shall see that still the skies are blue,
And feel once more I do not live in vain,
Although bereft of you.

Perhaps the golden meadows at my feet,
Will make the sunny hours of spring seem gay,
And I shall find the white May-blossoms sweet,
Though You have passed away.

Perhaps the summer woods will shimmer bright,
And crimson roses once again be fair,
And autumn harvest fields a rich delight,
Although You are not there.

But though kind Time may many joys renew,
There is one greatest joy I shall not know
Again, because my heart for loss of You
Was broken, long ago.”

Some of the most effecting, and so powerful, literature about war uses imagery that draws upon the natural world. The contrast between beauty, tranquillity and nostalgia, and the man made ugliness, pandemonium and pain of war is obvious.

The excerpt above, taken from Vera Brittain’s Testament of Youth (1933), considers whether she can once again take pleasure from the unceasing cycle of nature, and concludes that there will still always be the memory of what she has lost. Vera Brittain lost both her brother and her fiancé during the conflict.

Red poppies grow again on the battlefields. the natural world endures along with those left behind. In the aftermath of the First World War, a number of communities were moved to plant trees as living memorials to those who had died. As a symbol of longevity, continuity and regeneration, the trees would grow strong and tall for a hundred years in the place of the lost men.

A number of these memorial trees grew from acorns and chestnuts translocated from Verdun in north eastern France, having survived the devastation of the 10 month battle there in 1916*. Tree seeds offered the comforting idea of rebirth out of the ground full of the dead, a living link with a foreign land.

In the North York Moors, a lady called Kate Smailes of Goathland village had 12 English oak trees planted in 1922 to commemorate 12 men with connections to Goathland who had died as a result of the Great War. Her own son George had been killed during the Battle of the Somme and had no known grave. Mrs Smailes chose a location for the trees along the old incline railway line, where she could see them every day on her walk. The memories and memorials were honoured and valued, not forgotten even if that were possible for those left behind.

The 12 men of Goathland are…

Godfrey Bousfield Harrison, Private, Yorkshire Regiment – died 29 September, 1915, aged 38 – buried Alexandria (Chatby) Military and War Memorial Cemetery, Egypt.

John Ward, Private, Yorkshire Regiment – died 30 April 1916, aged 20 – remembered at La Neuville Communal Cemetery, Corbie, France.

Edward (or Edwin) Pennock, Private, Yorkshire Regiment – died 29 September 1916, aged ? – buried AIF Burial Ground, Fleurs, France.

George Smailes, Second Lieutenant, Prince of Wales’ own West Yorkshire Regiment – died 22 October 1916, aged 22 – remembered on the Thiepval Memorial, Amiens, France.

Thomas Readman – Lengthman, North-Eastern Temporary Special Construction Unit, Civilian Railway Companies – died 2 April 1917, aged 40 – buried Hazebrouck Communal Cemetery, France. Thomas Readman was one of a number of men from the Goathland area working for the Civilian Railway Companies in France to lay single railway tracks to enable better transportation of armaments and supplies which was vital for the war effort.

Frederick Cockerill, Private, Yorkshire Regiment – died 14 May 1917, aged 23 – remembered on the Arras Memorial, Pas de Calais, France.

Arthur Rymer, Private, Yorkshire Regiment – died 9 October 1917, aged 20 – remembered on the Tyne Cot Memorial, Belgium.

Robert Sleightholm, Apprentice, SS Dunrobin (cargo ship) – died 24 November 1917, aged 18 – remembered on the Tower Hill Memorial, London

Edwin Widdowson – Corporal, King’s Royal Rifle Corps – invalided out of the Army in 1917 – died 25 January 1918, aged 39.

John Yeoman Light, Lance Corporal, Royal Engineers – died 14 April 1918, aged 31 – remembered on the Tyne Cot Memorial, Belgium.

George Pybus, Private, Duke of Wellington’s West Riding Regiment – died 29 September 1918, aged 18 – buried Vieille-Chapelle New Military Cemetery, Lacouture, France.

Sidney Whiteley, Private, Yorkshire Regiment – died 11 November 1919, aged 22 – buried St Mary’s, Birdsall, Malton. (Wilfred W Whiteley?)

The men’s graves were in a foreign field, or they had no grave at all. Back in their damaged community of family, friends and neighbours they were commemorated on the stone War Memorial which stands on the village green and a marble tablet in St Mary’s Church, and memorialised by the 12 trees.

Now, 100 years later, a community project is underway led by the Goathland Community Hub & Sports Pavilion with support through the National Lottery and the North York Moors National Park Trust. The project will plant 12 new oak saplings close to the surviving original trees to ensure the memorial remains as the older trees naturally die. The young trees will be planted by the children of Goathland Primary School, helping to connect a new generation with past generations and with their place in history.

*The Woodland Trust is keen to trace and record as many of these Verdun memorial trees as possible.

Goathland Incline: a Community Archaeology Dig

Maria-Elena Calderón – This Exploited Land of Iron Cultural Heritage Officer and David Mennear – This Exploited Land of Iron Administration Assistant

Introduction 

This Exploited Land of Iron, our HLF Landscape Partnership Scheme, has had a busy and successful first summer with well attended events and exciting activities taking place across the North York Moors. This Exploited Land of Iron is investigating the once booming ironstone industry, which spread across the area from the early 19^th century until the mid-20^th century, although you may not easily notice its intrusion on the beautiful landscape today.

Following our first archaeological dig at Combs Wood (Beck Hole) back in May, our second archaeological excavation recently took place at the Goathland Incline over a two week period between 25 July and 5 August. It proved particularly popular with volunteers and passing visitors.

Today the village of Goathland is a peaceful and idyllic haven for tourists, a former spa town famous for the North Yorkshire Moors Railway and for masquerading as the fictional village of ‘Aidensfield’ from the old TV series, Heartbeat. You wouldn’t know today to look around the village, but Goathland once played a brief but fundamental part in the 19^th century ironstone mining industry, a noisy and disfiguring industry that required the transport of thousands of tonnes of ironstone across the North York Moors via railways. In fact not many historic photographs of the Goathland Incline survive at all. As such we didn’t quite know what existed or what remained. Targeted archaeological excavation, following a thorough study of the area and its history beforehand, was undertaken to investigate the remains at the Incline..

Goathland Incline: A Brief History of a Modern Mystery

The site itself dates to a brief period in the mid-19^th century when the railway was in its infancy. The early Whitby to Pickering horse-drawn railway was designed in the 1830s by none other than George Stephenson, the famous and much in-demand ‘Father of the Railways’. For the majority of the line, wagons and carriages were hauled using horse power; however, due to the 1 in 5 gradient present between Beck Hole and Goathland, an alternative power source was required. Powered inclines had been in use for a number of years by this point, employed primarily at mines. At Goathland a gravity system was used to haul the wagons and carriages up the incline – water butts were filled at the top of the incline and their weight was used to offset the weight of the wagons themselves, effectively and somewhat spectacularly pulling them up the incline. Once the water butts were at the base of the incline, they could then be emptied and brought back up by horses to be used again.

In 1845 the horse-drawn railway was transformed into a steam hauled railway by the new owner, a certain Mr George Hudson. At some point the incline itself was also transformed to steam power with a stationary engine sitting at the top of the incline. The engine house is shown on the Ordnance Survey map surveyed in 1849, but we’re currently unsure of the exact year that this new feature was installed. The conversion to steam power also required the installation of turntables at both the top and foot of the incline itself, as unlike the horses, locomotives could not turn themselves around in such a small space.

The incline was a perilous operation and was known to fail; a crash in 1864 killed 2 people and injured 13. In 1865 a deviation line was built which took a wider route with a shallower gradient that eliminated the need for an incline. The buildings were demolished, the site was abandoned to be subsumed back into Goathland village and the rest, as they say, is history.

The Dig Itself

Due to the early date of the railway at Goathland a lot of the layout relating to the gravity system remains unknown as it was replaced before the earliest ordnance survey maps. So we decided to open a series of trenches that targeted known historical structures and possible new structures identified by a LiDAR survey. Using remote sensing LiDAR maps the topography of the land from above and because it takes measurements from a variety of angles, it can effectively see though heavy vegetation and wooded areas. This allows for the identification of possible building structures or man-made earthworks within the targeted area.

Light Detection and Ranging, otherwise known as LiDAR, is a remote sensing method used in archaeology to examine the landscape surface. Here you can see the representation of the land around the historic site of the Goathland Incline, including a suspected turntable.The purple circle is the turntable and the blue rectangles the main trenches targeted within the red study areas

We placed three trenches over a circular feature suspected to be a turntable, one over a series of linear features shown in LiDAR and thought to be the remains of buildings, and one over the alleged engine house for the stationary engine.

The engine house location proved true but unfortunately not the rest. In archaeology, with both the best will and research in the world, you never truly know what you are going to uncover. The turntable was in fact a reservoir and what looked like building remains were probably instead the remains of allotment beds.

Our amazing volunteers hard at work on the trench that provided to be a bit of a damp squib.

The reservoir was interesting in itself as it turned out to be a clay capped earthen structure that had silted up over the years and had obviously been used as a rubbish dump. Finds such as jars, broken toys, Victorian glass bottles and ceramic wares gave us an insight into 1860-1940s Goathland life. Despite the late nature of the finds themselves, the structure itself we believe dates from the early gravity system, and offers us the only archaeological insight into that period. At that geographic level in Goathland there is no fast flowing water supply sufficient enough to fill the water butts for the gravity-assisted incline system. As such large water storage areas would have been required and allowed to fill on a slow trickle. Could this be what the reservoir was used for?

Getting down and dirty investigating one of the trenches with our Cultural Heritage Officer Maria Calderón and placement student Ewan Chipping to see what great work the volunteers have done.

Within the trench targeting the engine house we found substantial remains of stone walls 70-80cm (28-32”) thick with foundations continuing below a 1.4m (4’ 8”) depth from the surface level. It is clear that the engine house was a substantial structure with a basement. There were two internal rooms divided by a further stone wall. The building would have been roofed in slate, rather than the local vernacular of pantile; this is typical of railway buildings, as the companies that operated the railways worked on a regional or national level, and did not respect local building traditions.  Sadly we found no evidence of conduits or the stationary engine. In all likelihood most of the metal worked was instead probably sold for scrap at some point. To the north of the building we found traces of a stone covered yard.

‘Have you found anything interesting?’ We certainly did! You can tell by the foundations of the stone walls in this trench that a substantial building once stood here, like the engine house.

Goathland Uncovered: Mystery Solved?

But we had not given up on the turntable and with the help of a local resident we gained permission to open further excavations on the site. We opened six small test pits and hit the remains of a turntable in three pieces; two edges and at the centre point, from which we can extrapolate the size. This was a highlight of the excavation and was the fruitful work of a few very determined volunteers. One of the smaller test pits also identified the corner of a brick building that had been demolished.

A successful dig then, but questions still remain regarding the Goathland incline site:

a) How deep does the engine house go?
b) Are there any remains in the rooms waiting to be discovered?
c) Where was the cable drum for the incline?
d) What is the small brick building?

With these questions lingering in our minds after the excavation we’ll now process the information recorded and help to produce archaeological reports based on the available evidence. As always with archaeological fieldwork there may be more questions than answers, but what this dig helped uncover is invaluable to learning about the industrial life of the Goathland Incline and the individuals who worked on it and lived nearby.

Last but not least, we also had time to celebrate Yorkshire Day on the 1st August with a good mug of Yorkshire Tea!

In amongst the digging we also managed to make a short film (in very windy conditions) – have a look here.

We would like to extend a big thank you to all of our volunteers who took part in the excavation, and also a big thank you to all of the members of the local community who came to visit us and asked great questions or provided invaluable insights into Goathland life and industry.

To learn more about upcoming events and volunteering opportunities, please contact the Land of Iron team on 01439 772700 or email us.

What on earth is going on?

This gallery contains 55 photos.

This Exploited Land of Iron is our HLF Landscape Partnership Scheme focused on the ‘blazing, booming, enterprising’* ironstone industry in and around the North York Moors in the 19th century, and its surviving legacy. The Scheme was officially launched in … Continue reading →

This Exploited Land – a poetic mix of Victorian beauty and brass

Tom Mutton – TEL Programme Manager

When businessmen visited the Beck Hole Ironworks in 1860 their report in the Whitby Gazette gave a beautifully poetic account of this new enterprise. Despite the author’s lyrical writing style the article also illustrates a perceived total domination over the natural world that was the foundation of the industrial revolution.

This is partly what This Exploited Land is all about. Although in modern times we may miss the elegant language of the Victorian era, many of us have a very different view of the natural world and the potentially devastating effects of humanity’s exploitation of the planet. The way that nature has reclaimed the mines of the Esk Valley and Rosedale is humbling to see and shows us that we are surrounded by a beautiful and fascinating world that we should use our intellect to care for rather than abuse. To do this best we need to remember and learn from the past, being inspired by the monumental relics in the landscape and the stories from our ancestors who lived very different lives in the North York Moors we now enjoy.

Transcribed from Whitby Gazette 16 June 1860:

“…It is our pleasing duty to report the successful operation of the Whitby Iron Company’s (Limited) Works, at Goathland, which we noticed in our last impression as having been blown in on 7^th inst.

A few of our principal townsmen spent Monday evening at those Works, and were delighted with the various departments. The magnificent engine which supplies the blast for smelting the iron from the ore moves round like a thing of life, and at once the ever-lasting hills of the valley resound with the voice as of a tide bursting upon our shores.

We heartily wish the Company success, as the pioneers in a pursuit which is destined to revolutionise the habits and maxims of the valley of the Esk, and with the facility of the rails and our own good port, we venture, the day is not distant when capital and enterprise will demand that the whole of the district become one grand scene of industry, and that, from one end of the valley to the other, Old King Coal, supported by the genius of man, will assert his power in developing those vast storehouses of wealth which, during the last few years, have attracted the attention of strangers to those exhaustless beds of minerals which nature has provided and stored up in this locality, for the use of man in the arts of civilised life. And Whitby will one day have to rejoice in the fact, that she is one of the principal ports in the kingdom for the export of iron to the commercial ports of the world.

Beckhole, the little village at the head of the valley where these works are situate, has now a strange sight to look out upon morning and evening, which are ushered in with a torrent of molten iron and a flood of lava gushing forth from the bowels of the company’s furnace. The sweet songsters of the woods and glens are now giving up their claim to the morning’s dawn and evening calm. The _________ voices of the sons of toil mingling with the music of the compressed air of the blast engine, wait for the dawn of the East, whilst the perpetual columns of vapour, smoke, and flame, tell of the presence of man, successfully reducing to practice the maxim of the company’s tablet, viz “Tis the prerogative of man to command, develope, and appropriate to his service the elements with which God has surrounded him.” The tablet at the foot of which the above inscription is fixed commemorates the incorporation of the Company, the date at which the first Iron was made upon the Works, and the names of the Directors; and was cast from the Iron first run from the furnace.

In this noble course of action the W.I.C.L., have led the way. We heartily wish them god speed, and doubt not the success which awaits their spirited enterprise; and hail with joy the event as a blessing to the surrounding neighbourhood, and the watchword to the progressive establishment if similar works, whose effect will be to convert this district into one of the most thriving seats of the iron trade of this country, creating labour for man and beast, and scattering in its train the blessings of trade hitherto unknown in the locality.”

This tablet, referred to in the article and cast from the first Esk Valley iron, can be seen today in Whitby Museum.

It’s worth noting that Whitby Iron Company Limited was short lived – it was wound up in 1862.

Can you help?
There are two words in the article that are obscured by a tear in the paper from which it was transcribed – can you suggest what the missing words before ‘voices of the sons of toil…’ might be? please let us know.

This Exploited Land: the trailblazing story of ironstone and railways in the
North York Moors

From Beck Hole to Brazil

Louise Cooke – This Exploited Land Progamme Manager

This Exploited Land has a wealth of stories to tell. These stories from the past can be traced on the landscape today and have tracks stretching out beyond the North York Moors.

For 30 years from 1836 the trains along the new Whitby to Pickering railway had to overcome the 1:15 incline at Beck Hole. The carriages were initially horse-drawn but when the trains came up against the steep gradient of the incline between Beck Hole and Goathland the only way up and down was pulling and holding the carriages on a system of wire ropes. Steam power took over from horses in 1845, but trains still had to negotiate the incline by means of winches. Winches are intrinsically dangerous; a fatal accident occurred in 1864. The delays, problems and dangers of using the incline motivated the construction of a more practical deviation line in 1865. This allowed steam locomotives to travel along the complete line for the first time, and this is the current route of the North York Moors Railway.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Above is a detail of the TEL Lidar survey undertaken in the development phase of the TEL Scheme. The defined line at the top shows the route of the current NYMR Whitby-Pickering Railway. The less defined line through the centre shows the route of the Beck Hole Incline.

So what happened to the ‘abandoned’ Beck Hole incline which connects the TEL landscape to Brazil and to innovations in railway technology that changed the ways railways worked through the 20^th century…

In 1872 a 685 metre length of 3’7” (narrow) gauge track was laid on the disused Beck Hole Incline and successful tests were carried on a fell-system locomotive built by Manning & Wardle of Leeds. A fell-system uses a third rail to provide the necessary extra power and control when travelling up and down intense slopes. Manning & Wardle narrow gauges were exported around the world to Europe, Africa, the Indian sub-continent, Australasia and South America – so this short stretch of the Beck Hole Incline may have had an impact on the wider world opening up mountainous regions to exploitation.

Four fell-system locomotives were purchased from Manning & Wardle for use on the Cantagallo Railway in Brazil. This was Brazil’s first mountain railway linking Niterói to Nova Friburgo and allowed coffee to be shipped down from the mountains and out to the coast for export.

Back in the North York Moors, late in 1908 the railway line from Grosmont to the foot of the incline was re-opened for an Autocar service which ran in the summer months until the outbreak of the war in 1914. The North East Railway’s Autocars used early experimental petrol engines that generated electricity, and so are predecessors of the diesel and electric trains which took over the railways through the 20^th century. The excursion/day trips by Autocar to Beck Hole saw tourists and visitors making use of industrial remains within the declining industrial landscape at the time.

The Beck Hole Incline is now the route of the Historic Rail Trail footpath between Goathland and Grosmont. Walking down the incline today it is hard to imagine how it worked and what it looked like in its hey-day. It is perhaps even harder to imagine how this now tranquil part of the North York Moors is associated with changes in railway technology and how Beck Hole can be connected to Brazil.

Favourite restorations and reinstatements

We like Top 10 lists on this Blog – here’s a Top 5 instead. Our Building Conservation team pick their Top 5 projects from the last financial year.

Clair Shields – Planning Policy Officer/Building Conservation Officer

These Top 5 building conservation projects are some of our favourites and have been selected to give a snap-shot of some the work the National Park Authority has been involved in. Not all these projects involved direct grant funding but they all included our input in one way or another. The projects aren’t in any particular order and are featured for a variety of reasons such as size and scale, uniqueness, quirkiness, or because the works have been a labour of love carried out by the owner!

 Robin Hood’s Bay Window

The replacement of modern unsympathetic windows and reinstatement of old style vastly improves the appearance of a property. This can be a simple task to undertake when there are old photographs for reference, or the size and shape of the opening clearly indicates its former style. However in this case, it is obvious that the existing downstairs window was a relatively modern intervention and therefore in order to find a suitable style and arrangement to compliment rather than detract from the host property lots of sketches were drawn up to compare and consider. This resulting unequal sash adds to the diversity of the area’s architectural features.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Staithes (1)

Last year there were several projects in Staithes which saw the reinstatement of more traditional style windows to properties located in the heart of this important Conservation Area.

This is Chapel Cottage – where modern windows were replaced with traditional vertical sliding sash windows and Yorkshire sliding sashes to the dormer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Staithes (2)

Here, old photographs were used to evidence an older style of window. Consideration was given to the possibility of removing the render to the front, however the old photos shows that this was a former shop and therefore the stonework underneath was unlikely to be of good enough quality to expose. The two tone paint colour, (a typical feature of coastal villages) enhances the local distinctiveness.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Goathland Waymarker Stones

Waymarker stones may seem relatively insignificant as listed structures compared with castles and cathedrals, but they were culturally important. Historically they were guide features for people traversing the moorland, defining the route to follow in a landscape which has very few points of reference. For this reason, waymarkers are still found across the moors. However where modern roads follow the same historic routes often waymarkers have been lost through damage or theft, which was the case along the Pickering to Goathland road. Of the seven recorded listed waymarkers, only one was still in place.

In order to maintain the evidence of this historic route, we worked with the Estate to reinstate six of the lost waymarkers. A local farmer was particularly keen to see them reinstated as in winter when the snow covers the moors they still define the line of the road which is as useful now as it was in the past.

Ionic Temple at Duncombe Park

In contrast to waymarkers and windows, due to the sheer scale of the work involved the Ionic Temple project was a milestone for the National Park Authority. The Temple had been on English Heritage’s ‘At Risk’ register since its inception in 1985. The repair of the Temple was a big project to be involved in, alongside many other funding bodies. See our previous blog post for more details.

 

 

 

 

The companion Tuscan Temple, at the other end of the Rievaulx Terrace, is due to be repaired through Natural England’s Higher Level Stewardship Scheme.

 

1865

Stephen Croft – TEL Programme Manager

2015 sees a number of notable 150^th anniversaries in the story of ironstone and railways in the North York Moors. It turns out that 1865 was an important juncture in industrial development in this area when elements combined to boost the output and feed expansion.

1865 saw the opening of the ‘deviation’ line on the Whitby and Pickering Railway which eliminated the need for the mechanical incline at Beck Hole using winches, allowing the railway to become fully steam hauled. This 1865 re-route around Beck Hole and Goathland remains the line of the North Yorkshire Moors Railway today, one of the oldest railways in the world still running on (most of) its original route. It was at this time that today’s Goathland Station was built beside the water mill – it was originally called Goathland Mill station.

1865 witnessed the completion of the North Eastern Railway (NER) North Yorkshire and Cleveland branch which connected Grosmont with Middlesbrough and hence linked the Whitby and Pickering line into the growing rail network and connected product with market. This, too, is still running today – as the Esk Valley line.

1865 saw the opening of the extension which took the railway line around the head of Rosedale to reach the mines and calcining kilns (heating ironstone to extract the iron) on the east side of the valley. The original railway had opened 5 years earlier but this extension meant that both sides of the dale were connected and exploitation augmented. The Rosedale Railway was operational until after mining ceased in the dale in 1926 and for three years afterwards the valuable mineral rich waste from the calcining process was recovered from spoil heaps. The tracks were then lifted but the Rosedale Railway route remains open today for walkers, cyclists and horse riders to experience.

1865 is when the rail network built across the North York Moors which serviced the ironstone industry, was complete. Whether still running as a railway today or now dismantled, these railways shaped the landscape we know and brought transformation to what had previously been a remote and isolated rural area. The railways enabled easier and quicker movement – not only providing a relatively cheap method of transport for the heavy ironstone, but also making goods manufactured in the towns available to the local rural community and vice versa, stimulating the market. They also provided a passenger service – the world’s first cut price railway excursion ran from Grosmont as early as 1839.

Until the arrival of these railways, heavy goods such as building stone were laboriously exported via packhorse or cart along poor roads down into Whitby on the North Sea coast from where it was loaded onto ships. The railways revolutionised the viability of quarries allowing high quality stone to be sent down the coast to London and beyond where it was particularly valued for its resistance to seawater for the construction of harbour works and river embankments. It was to export this stone that the Whitby and Pickering Railway was first built and it was during its construction that ironstone was discovered in substantial seams at Grosmont. That discovery changed the history of the North York Moors.

So for 150 years, it has been possible to travel across the North York Moors by rail. The abundance of ironstone found here in the mid-nineteenth century and the railways to carry it away cheaply led on to the development of industrial Teesside, a world centre for iron and steel and heavy engineering – Gladstone’s ‘Infant Hercules’ – steaming forward beyond the second industrial revolution into a new idealised industrial age.

This Exploited Land (TEL) is a Heritage Lottery Fund HLF Landscape Partnership Programme currently under development. It will tell the story of pioneering ironstone exploitation and iron making together with the early development of railways along the remote valleys of the North York Moors, as well as their forgotten communities.

At the start of life

Simon Hirst – River Esk Project Officer

An important part of our work on the River Esk is engaging with local people who are vital in helping to secure a sustainable future for the salmon and trout, and the freshwater pearl mussel population who live in the river. For the past 7 years we’ve been rolling out the Salmon in the Classroom initiative to a different village school each year in the Esk Catchment. This year it’s been the turn of Goathland Primary School.

We supplied the hatchery tank and the Atlantic Salmon eggs in March and the children have been raising the fish since then through the initial stage of their life cycle (from egg to fry). At the same time Heather and trainee teachers Megan and Francesca from our Education Team have been telling the children the story of the creatures who live together in the river including the illusive pearl mussels whose larvae rely on the fish as hosts, and illustrating the value of the children’s local river environment. The children have had the rare chance to see the start of life for the fish in front of their eyes, and in return have produced inspired artwork.

A couple of weeks ago the children released the young fish – around 70 of them – into the Murk Esk at Beck Hole. The released fish will remain in the river for around two years – growing and developing until they are big enough to migrate out to sea. Then hopefully they’ll return to the Esk river network in about three years’ time to spawn and produce young of their own.

 

 

As mentioned previously, the River Esk is the only river in Yorkshire with a freshwater pearl mussel population but numbers are in drastic decline. With the help of landowners and in partnership with the Yorkshire Esk Rivers Trust (YERT), we’re carrying out restoration work along the river to improve the river habitat for the benefit of the mussels and other river species. Pollution and sediment build up, decline in fish populations and habitat degradation are all recognised reasons for the decline. An improved habitat would allow the re-introduction of juvenile pearl mussels currently being raised through the captive breeding programme at the Freshwater Biological Association facility in Windermere, in order to boost the ageing population hanging on in the Esk.

Building bridges

Stephen Croft – TEL Programme Manager

I think of This Exploited Land (TEL) in terms of bridge building – both literally and metaphorically.

From here to Australia

If you stick with me for a minute, you can follow all the connections, step-by-step, to trace the origins of the Sydney Harbour Bridge in Australia – one of the most instantly recognised iconic images in the world – back to the chance discovery of a commercial seam of ironstone in Grosmont in the early 1830s during the building of the Whitby to Pickering Railway.

The abundance of the ironstone found around Grosmont went to supply the needs of the Losh, Wilson and Bell Ironworks on Tyneside. Thomas Bell’s son, Sir Isaac Lowthian Bell, went on to be one of the most successful ironmasters in England and played a significant role in the development of Middlesbrough.

At the peak of iron and steel making in Middlesbrough in the 1870s the partnership between Arthur Dorman and Albert de Lande Long began the gradual takeover of iron and steelmaking companies, including Bell Brothers, to form Dorman Long. During the 1920s, Dorman Long branched out and developed into an engineering company and began to gain an expertise in bridge building.

In 1924, Dorman Long won the international tender to engineer and construct the Sydney Harbour Bridge. When it opened in 1932, the bridge was the widest (at 48.8m) single span bridge in the world, with a clear span of 504m.

Sydney Harbour Bridge formed a backdrop to the celebrations of the start of the new millennium with its fantastic firework display now repeated annually. The natural harbour was discovered by Captain James Cook who was born on the fringes of the North York Moors at Marton and grew up in Great Ayton; he had his first apprenticeship in Staithes on the North Yorkshire coast and learned his seamanship in Whitby. His most famous ship, Endeavour, was based on the traditional Whitby Collier. These colliers would later transport the newly discovered ironstone from Grosmont up to the Tyne. With yet another connection – Endeavour gave its name to one of the Space Shuttles – the local influence can be stretched even further.

Iron making

Ironstone is sedimentary rock containing iron sediment from which iron can be extracted. The early ironstone mining in the North York Moors gradually yielded to the cheaper and larger iron deposits found around Eston to the north and ultimately to even cheaper iron ore imported from around the world. The centre of gravity in iron making in the second half of the 19^th century moved from Grosmont and Beck Hole to the quickly developing Middlesbrough on the banks of the River Tees as this new area became a world centre for iron, steel and heavy engineering. Prime Minister Gladstone called Middlesbrough an ‘Infant Hercules’ because of the apparent potential of the booming town.

In all, there was 100 years of mining in the North York Moors area and 130 years in the wider Cleveland area. The last ironstone mine (North Skelton) closed in 1964, so within living memory, so making a bridge is still possible between the new post-industrial generation and their industrial and industrious forebears. We need to value that bridge whilst the memories still survive. This is our history.

Railway remnants

The 1820s and 1830s were a time of huge innovation. Imagine the leap of faith it must have been for the ship owners in Whitby to bring George Stephenson to town to get him to build them one of those new railways. Huge cost, huge risk and no certainty of a financial reward. In the end those first investors lost money, but the North Yorkshire Moors Railway, continues to run today, almost entirely along its original route, making a tangible bridge back to the early 1830s. The first cargo for the new railway in the 1830s was local building stone, exported out of Whitby down the coast as far as London to build bridge abutments and harbour works, it being a stone that was resilient in seawater.

If you follow the current Rail Trail walk from Goathland to Grosmont, and I recommend you to do just that, take the opportunity to wander down one of the side paths near Beck Hole and look back across at the original railway embankments. Here you will see a number of beautiful stone bridges, built like Renaissance structures with fine stonework, rusticated plinths and skew arches. Works of art and craftsmanship but at the same time utility constructions to enable the railway to work. These hidden bridges link the pre-industrial Georgian age of neo-classical design and the new age of iron and steam and practical engineering.

 

 

 

 

 

Q.E.D.

This Exploited Land is more than just some interesting stone monuments in the
landscape – a mysterious set of redundant arches, contrasting with a green background: tranquil, quiet, almost forgotten. It is a bridge to the past, to lives lived and a pioneering spirit; it is a bridge reaching further back to a pre-industrial rural past. It bridges across the continents of the globe to Australia, to Istanbul (Bosphorus Bridge), to Southern Africa (Victoria Falls Bridge) and many other places where Teesside engineers have stretched the bounds of structural engineering. It forms a bridge from the now peaceful dales of the North York Moors to its noisier offspring, the conurbation of Teesside.

This Exploited Land is an exercise in bridge building!