Sweetening the land

Ellie Leary – Monuments for the Future Project Officer

Not all of the archaeology within the North York Moors is as ancient and enigmatic as the standing stones or rock art (see previous posts). Once a ubiquitous presence within the landscape, you can still stumble across the remains of a more industrial feature – lime kilns. These structures were part of an industry that has shaped and changed the landscape of the area from the extraction of the limestone from quarries to its end use as a building material and soil improver.

Over 400 lime kiln sites are recorded within the National Park’s Historic Environment Record, with the evidence coming mainly from historic maps, but also earthworks and standing remains. Only three of these kilns have the benefit of protected status as Scheduled Monuments, and in all cases they are included as part of a wider monument rather than in their own right. Another three have protected status as Grade II Listed Buildings.

The use of lime has a long history in Britain dating back to at least the Roman period and over time it has had a wide range of practical uses from forming the base of plasters, mortar and concrete; as lime-wash for waterproofing walls and lightening interiors; in the bleaching of paper and preparing hides for tanning; as a disinfectant; and as a soil improver for agriculture.

During the Roman period it was used particularly for lime-mortar, plaster and lime wash; while during the mediaeval period the need for quantities of lime hugely increased with the construction of large stone-built buildings and bridges. From the 17th century onwards however the main use of lime has been in agriculture, with it being added to soil to improve acidic soils or as a top dressing to pasture to “sweeten” the land.

In most cases in order to turn raw limestone into a useable product it has to be fired in a kiln, creating a process called calcining where calcium carbonate is converted into calcium oxide. This process was both labour and fuel intensive and the trade was known as lime burning – those working at the kilns, were lime burners.

Most of the kilns known of within the North York Moors date to the 18^th and 19^th centuries, although earlier examples do exist. Excavations at Ayton Castle, for example, revealed a lime kiln dated to the 14^th century, which may have produced lime mortar and cement for the construction of the castle’s tower house, the ruins of which still stand.  (This is one of the three kiln sites included within a wider Scheduled Monument – see above).

The earliest kilns were simple clamp kilns which consisted of a circular or rectangular hollow within which the limestone and fuel were layered, covered with clay or turf, and left to burn for a few days. Often clamp kilns leave little obvious trace, however the remaining protected kiln sites in this area (as mentioned above) include two clamp kilns built into the bank of a scheduled prehistoric cross dyke and another cut into the edge of a scheduled Bronze Age barrow – the actual kilns are all thought to be 18^th or 19^th century in date. Their remains can be seen as horse shoe shaped mounds of earth and stone rubble.

As the demand for lime increased kilns became more substantial in size although the transformation process remained the same. Kilns were generally circular or square stone structures, about 3m in height, with a bowl lined with sandstone or firebricks and at least one draw hole located at the bottom of the kiln. As the contents burnt through the lime was extracted through the draw holes at the bottom. Additional layers of stone and fuel could be added to the top if necessary, otherwise one-off firings were carried out as needed. A good example of this kind of kiln can be found at Old Byland where the remains of four lime kilns stand next to a road (see image below). They are located on the edge of a quarry to the south west of the village and some parts survive to 5m in height, with two of the kilns having the roof and flue surviving.

The end product removed from a kiln was called ‘lump lime’, ‘burnt lime’ or ‘quicklime’ and in order to convert this for use it has to be ‘slaked’ – a process involving adding water to cause a reaction which produces heat and steam. By then adding enough water, putty is produced, which, mixed with sand, produces a mortar. Over time this reverts back to calcium carbonate and hardens.  When used in agriculture the ‘lump lime’ was left in heaps, covered in earth and left to slake, eventually creating a powder that could be ploughed into the soil. Other methods were used too, including leaving the lime uncovered and occasionally turning to produce the same result.  ‘Lump lime’ is a volatile material and there were inherent dangers if it started to ‘slake’, producing heat, before it arrived at the final destination.  By the late 19^th century, hydration plants were introduced that could grind the lime, sprinkle it with water, dry it and then bag it for transporting.

The location of kilns largely depends on the final use for the ‘quicklime’, so that if it were needed for building construction the kilns would most likely be located close to the building site. They could then either be dismantled and moved or left to decay once they were no longer needed.

Field kilns were sometimes built by farmers and land owning estates from the 17^th century. Smaller kilns would have been built by farmers for occasional use to improve their land but estates often built larger kilns to serve the whole estate and wider area, providing a profitable source of income.

Another common location for kilns was close to or within limestone quarries. Many of these quarries are still obvious on the ground now as large excavated pits; historic mapping helps to identify the full extent of the quarries and the location of kilns. The 1893 Ordnance Survey map (below) shows Sour Ley Quarry near Helmsley with up to 20 lime kilns within the quarry.

Easy access to transportation was also another consideration for the location – for fuel to be brought in and for the final product to taken away for sale.  Colonel Sir Joshua Crompton, 19^th century owner of the Kepwick Estate on the western edge of the North York Moors, built a railway line in the early 1820s which carried limestone from a quarry on Kepwick Moor down to the lime kilns and stone yard to the west. Fuel for the kilns could be easily brought in and the final product taken away on the Thirsk to Yarm turnpike road (now the A19). With a very steep incline up to the quarry the railway used gravity; as the full wagons were sent down slope they pulled the empty ones up towards the quarry, whilst horses pulled the wagons along the flat plain to the west. The quarry and the start of the now dismantled railway line lie with the National Park boundary and the lime kilns themselves are a short distance outside the boundary and are protected as a Scheduled Monument.

As the demand for quicklime grew the process became industrialised, with new kilns designed with efficiency in mind as well as a higher quality lime product. As a result most of these smaller local kilns were abandoned by the 20^th century, with some being dismantled and others left to decay, remaining in the landscape as a reminder of this chapter of industry.

To keep up to date with the latest National Park response to Covid-19 – see here.

What happened next?

Before Love in the Countryside, there was Sunley’s Daughter.

Back in the 1970s, Barry Cockcroft made a series of documentary programmes for Yorkshire Television portraying engaging characters living a rural life in the north of the county – the most famous of which was Too Long a Winter which starred Hannah Hauxwell farming in Baldersdale in the North Pennines.

There were also a couple of programmes set in the Cleveland Hills/Esk Dale in the north of the North York Moors. One – The Children of Eskdale – has already featured on this Blog. The other is Sunley’s Daughter, filmed in 1974. Like the other episodes the idea was to document real people’s lives in such a way as to construct a ‘drama’, a human interest story.

The Sunley family live on a tenanted farm near Gerrick – Joe Sunley, the patriarch figure, Connie Sunley, his wife, and one remaining child, Mary whose four siblings have all moved away. In this north west corner of the North York Moors it isn’t the climate that is harsh enough to make a story, instead it is the atypical life of 25 year old Mary. Mary works on the dairy farm – hard physical labour – seven days a week. She has done so for years, and will do so for years to come as long as her parents are alive and keep the tenancy of the farm. The farm can’t be passed down, it belongs to the local estate – Ringrose Wharton (now Skelton & Gilling). A farm under tenancy means there is not the incentive to invest in the farm and its machinery, even if Joe Sunley wanted to, which he doesn’t. He wants to live by the tenets of the Bible – a hard life makes that easier to do. He chooses not to have electricity, as he chooses not to celebrate birthdays or Christmas – and so neither do his family, the interviewer gets his wife to admit she misses the electricity. Joe perseveres (a biblical maxim); as Connie says ‘he’ll never give in’. Interestingly Joe doesn’t come from the expected cliché of generations of local farming stock – his father was an ironstone miner and he himself was a fitter until the Great Depression. He worked his way up using allotments for growing vegetables, rearing chickens, making ice cream in Guisborough, before finally getting himself a farming tenancy. Connie worked alongside him all the way.

What Joe, along with a number of other working farmers in the East Cleveland Hills, takes particular satisfaction in is the breeding of Cleveland Bay horses – a local native breed, highly valued today. You see Joe riding a horse, he used to plough with them; the Cleveland Bay is known as a working horse despite looking like a million dollars. The breed declined in the 20^th century and during that time it was Joe Sunley and his neighbours that kept it alive. Joe Sunley is and was a renowned breeder, he sold horses to the Queen of England and the Emperor of Japan, but he’s definitely not going to let that make him a fortune. The programme doesn’t explain why he does it, maybe it’s another thing to strive at, to give him a sense of achievement. His horses in particular seem extremely spirited.

According to the programme for Mary every day is the same … until she meets Jim Smith, a farm labourer on the next door farm. He asks her out, and after a year they are engaged. That’s Part One of the programme. Part Two appears to be working up to a marriage and to establishing a new future for Mary. I don’t mean to spoil the programme’s ending for you – but this doesn’t happen. Mary is a thoughtful woman, she has made sense of her life. Like her mother, she’s more passive than proactive, she wants to ‘wait and see’ and expect there will be ‘more chances’ to come for her and Jim. She’s not ready to go at that time.

One of the main themes presented is the unchanging nature of the Sunley’s lives, but this is exaggerated because around them times are changing as they inevitably do. The farm next door has a milking machine, and productive Friesian dairy cows. The Estate Manager at Skelton Castle talks about the expected ingress of Teesside and expanding urbanisation impacting on the Cleveland Hills. He recognises that small farms will become unviable and suggests Jim will need 400 to 500 acres of farmland (150 to 200 hectares) to support a family. For Jim as a farm labourer buying a farm is impossible, and estate farms to rent are few and far between – they’re trapped between lack of income and tradition. There is an opportunity for Jim to work on a ‘modern’ farm at Dunsley, near Whitby, for an 11 hour day at £31 a week (c. £225 today) but with the advantage of having a tied house for him and Mary to live in, as long as they’re married.

But it’s not all Cold Comfort Farm. Mary has been ‘outside’, to Leeds, to Middlesbrough, to Scotland; that may not seem very exotic but it’s not unusual for the 1970s. Mary is allowed to go out with Jim and to get engaged – she’s not forbidden by her father. She curls her hair and goes to the dance at the local Village Hall. The clothes and hair of the people at the dance, mainly women and girls, are very much of the 1970s even if the music is not. Mary’s father acknowledges her value, her mother says she would miss her.

It’s difficult to imagine how the programme got made. Barry Cockcroft must have been good at getting circumspect people to trust him enough to allow him to film them and to tell stories about their lives. The dialogue is encouraged, not coached – the men are much keener on speaking their minds than the women. The programme may over emphasise the romantic music, maybe it’s a bit patronising, maybe it pushes Mary a bit too much to try and get her to react. But it’s interesting for a number of reasons –  reflecting farming in the 1970s, capturing real people only a couple of generations ago even if it is in a directed documentary, or maybe it’s just because of the human interest in the realistic rather than fairy tale ending. I wonder what happened to Mary and Jim – but that’s their business, not mine.

Tales over Tea – upcoming Land of Iron events

UPDATE – Because so many people turned up to the first talk in March – we’ve had to change to a bigger venue. So please note that the next three talks (11 April, 30 May and 18 July) will be at Danby Village Hall (Dale End, Danby, Whitby, YO21 2LZ).

The Land of Iron team are delighted to be able to present a series of talks by acclaimed historian Malcolm Bisby, widely considered to be the national expert on the ironstone industry in Rosedale. This is a free four-part lecture series over the next few months, based at the Moors National Park Centre in Danby. The first talk will take place on Wednesday 14 March starting at 1 pm.

 

Historian Malcolm Bisby, well known in the North York Moors and an expert on the ironstone mining industry in the local area.

Positioned at the heart of the North York Moors, the Rosedale railway played a fundamental role in delivering the ironstone from the nearby dales and hills onto the wider transport network and to the iron works in the north east of England. From the opening of the first mines in the 1850s to the lowering of the last locomotive down the Ingleby Incline in 1929, Rosedale played host to the impressive and ground-breaking 14-mile long railway alongside a number of important mining sites.

The locomotive approaches Ingleby Station. As well as carrying the ironstone from the mining sites to the iron works, the engines that used the Rosedale railway branch line also connected new and old communities together.

The series promises to be fascinating opportunity. Malcolm will expertly introduce the Rosedale area and explain the importance that the mining industry had on the local communities and population. The ironstone industry changed the area fundamentally, the effects of which can still be seen in this magnificent landscape today.

Come along to the Moors Centre for the first talk on 14 March – no need to book. There will be a wealth of historic photographs of the ironstone mining industry in operation alongside a whole host of wonderful stories, all complemented with afternoon tea and cakes.

If you would like further information on upcoming Land of Iron activities and events – please see our Land of Iron website or email us.

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.

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 →

Lest we forget

Beth Davies – Building Conservation Officer

A hundred years ago the First World War was into its fourth calendar year with no end in sight; Germany announced on 31 January 1917 that unrestricted submarine warfare would commence the following day and all ships in the war zone would become targets…

It is very difficult for us now to appreciate the full horror of what the servicemen who fought in the war experienced. Similarly we can only begin to imagine what it must have been like for those at home left behind without fathers, husbands, brothers and sons.

In the aftermath of the First World War thousands of built memorials to the dead were erected across Britain. These communal memorials acted as shared totems for society suffering devastating loss and in the face of the official policy of not repatriating the dead. They provided an embodiment of the common grief felt and the validation of sacrifice, and still today provide a tangible reminder of the real impact of war. Whereas the huge numbers of dead and injured are difficult to grasp, the individual names of the local people lost are poignant and tangible.

War Memorials draw particular public interest and warrant serious consideration for listing. Historic England is particularly keen during the centenary of the First World War to increase protection of unlisted memorials. Following on from the listing of the Commondale Shepherds’ Memorial last year, we are pleased that two further war memorials in the North York Moors have been afforded Grade II listed status as part Historic England’s drive to protect for posterity these meaningful and evocative structures.

Glaisdale War Memorial was unveiled on 4 December 1920 by Major General Sir James K Trotter, FCB, CMG. It is an elegant example of a Latin cross set on a tapering octagonal section shaft and displays a high level of craftsmanship with carved decorative details and fine lettering. Its prominent location on a small green with expansive views north down Glaisdale contributes to its impact in recalling the memory of the dead and where they belonged. The plinth at the base of the shaft reads ‘TO THE MEMORY OF THE MEN OF GLAISDALE WHO FELL IN THE GREAT WAR 1914-1919 JESU BLEST GRANT THEM IN THY LOVE TO REST’. There are thirteen names: John Boas, William J M Child, James Jefferson, John Pearson, Ralph Scarth, Charles E Scanlon, John H Scarth, Frederick Scarth, Francis R Scarth, William Ward, Ernest Wilson, Pennock Winspear, Harry Winspear.

The Commondale War Memorial was unveiled by Lord Guisborough at an ecumenical ceremony held on 31 August 1921. It was designed by WH Earl of Danby and made by J Ford of Castleton. The memorial commemorates nine local servicemen who died during the First World War including the two shepherds commemorated by the aforementioned Grade II listed Shepherds’ Memorial.  The names are Thomas Monk, Samuel Lawson, Thomas Gibson, Robert H Leggott, William Hill, Frederick W Robinson, Charles E Foster, Alfred Cockerill, David Johnson. It comprises a stone Latin cross on a short tapering square-sectioned shaft which rises from a plinth set on a four-stage square base. Set into the plinth are unusual, brown salt-glazed stoneware tablets probably made by the local London and Cleveland Fire Brick Co Ltd Brick and Pipe Works. On the main facing and rear tablets are stamped the words ‘IN HONOURED MEMORY OF THE MEN OF COMMONDALE WHO GAVE THEIR LIVES FOR GOD, KING AND COUNTRY, IN THE GREAT WAR 1914-1918. THEIR NAME SHALL LIVE FOR EVER AND THEIR GLORY SHALL NOT BE BLOTTED OUT. LEST WE FORGET’.

For anyone interested in finding out more about the war memorials in the North York Moors and the men commemorated please visit the Roll of Honour website.  For communities wishing to carry out repairs to their War Memorial it’s worth contacting the War Memorials Trust as grant aid and advice are often available. For further advice about how to apply to have a War Memorial listed please contact the National Park Authority’s Building Conservation team on 01439 772700.

End of an era

Our Senior Archaeologist is taking phased retirement, so before he goes he has been asked to reflect on his time with the North York Moors National Park.

Graham Lee – Senior Archaeological Conservation Officer

How do I sum up a career lasting over a quarter of a century in a few paragraphs? It is a strange feeling to have 26 years seemingly flash by so fast.

I started work for the North York Moors National Park in April 1990, having previously worked in the archaeology section of North Yorkshire County Council since the summer of 1983. I had decided many years before that I loved the north of England and had no desire to return to my southern ‘roots’.

One of my first tasks with the National Park was the completion of a management survey of one of our large estates, encompassing moorland and large blocks of forestry. This quickly whetted my appetite for the excitement of making new archaeological discoveries – often very subtle earthworks, no more than a handful of centimetres in depth or relief – despite an exceptional tradition of previous high quality archaeological fieldwork in the region. Working solo in large blocks of conifers was a good test of dedication – crawling under the branches of dense stands of conifers searching for vague earthworks mapped in the 1890s – and the steadiness of nerve, when yet another wretched pheasant exploded out of the leafy vegetation where I was just about to step! In recent years the delights of discovery have been broadening thanks to new technology and techniques, especially LiDAR which provides an aerial view through tree and ground-cover vegetation of archaeological remains that were previously hidden or obscured.

If you have a passion for the past, the North York Moors have something for pretty much everyone – enigmatic Neolithic rock art; surviving prehistoric pitted boundaries and avenues; upstanding Bronze Age funerary monuments and field systems; Roman encampments; medieval castles and monasteries…

Human industry is also well represented – from the earliest iron industry through the search for alum into the full-blown “iron rush” of the mid 19^th century, the exploitation of coal and jet, and the plentiful local rivers managed to provide motive power for a range of watermills. Research and conservation priorities relating to these local industries finally led to our new HLF Landscape Partnership Scheme, This Exploited Land of Iron. Some 15 or so years in gestation, it is very rewarding to see new generations captured by the excitement of the important remains of our 19^th century ironstone industry and the associated development of early railways – although the original scheme for a canal link between Whitby and Pickering would have been a sight to behold and a major tourist attraction if it had ever been built.

Into the 20^th century, remains survive here from both world wars – in the form of coastal defences, army camps as well as troop training and target practice areas. Finds are still occasionally made of 2^nd World War unexploded ordnance in former training areas across the North York Moors, in particular after the wildfire on Fylingdales Moor in 2003 which affected two square kilometres of heather moorland.

Although an environmental disaster – the severity of the fire in reducing the shallow peat cover to ash, this event was an archaeological revelation. Virtually everywhere you looked, subtle archaeological remains became visible, including the drip gulleys around former prehistoric round houses, low stony prehistoric boundaries and cairns, large numbers of previously unrecorded examples of Neolithic rock art and occasional shallow trenches which resembled grave cuts with a subsiding infill. As numbers of the latter quickly increased their interpretation became clear – slit trenches from 2^nd World War troop training. I remember my first visit to the site after the fire when the ground was reddened and blackened, covered in ash and still smouldering; few trees had survived and many had toppled after the peat holding their roots in place had been burnt away. Flashes of colour were very noticeable, such as an adder emerging from its underground refuge having survived the conflagration. A major project ensued, both to protect and restore the moorland habitat and to record and investigate the breath-taking remains of surviving archaeology.

There have always been new specialisms to get to grips with. A visit to the Scheduled Rosedale iron calcining kilns with the Park’s Conservation Director at the time revealed that a portion of one of the kilns’ firebrick linings had collapsed the previous winter. This led to a major conservation project to stabilise these huge monuments which ran for three years in the mid 1990s, a forerunner of This Exploited Land which will continue the efforts to conserve these monumental sites 20 years on.

It has been such a pleasure working with like-minded and dedicated professionals, both in my own National Park, but also with colleagues throughout the family of British National Parks, and Historic England and Natural England. We’ve shared experiences and ideas to the betterment of our discipline from research to management, and also shared the excitement of attempting to bring our subject, which we love, to life for anyone who cares to see and to get involved.

The National Park Authority is currently looking for a new Senior Archaeologist to lead on archaeology in the North York Moors. The closing date for applications is 26 January 2017.

This Exploited Land – hitting the ground running

Tom Mutton – TEL Programme Manager

This Exploited Land (TEL), our HLF Landscape Partnership Scheme, is now building up steam with projects starting on the ground and the recruitment of new project staff underway. As well as myself we’ve got Elspeth Ingleby as our Natural Heritage Officer and Thelma Wingfield as our Administrative Assistant. The remaining two TEL vacancies for a Cultural Heritage Officer and a Volunteer Coordinator are expected to be filled by January. Special thanks to Louise Cooke for building and nurturing the Scheme to where it is today. We hope Louise will continue to be involved with TEL and will see all the project ideas become a reality over the next five years.

One of the first projects underway is the repair of the landslip at the East Kilns in Rosedale. The landslip is on the line of the old Rosedale Railway and is a popular route round the top end of the dale. The remedial engineering works will maintain safe access along the path, enable vital practical access to the two sets of kilns which will be subject to major consolidation during 2017/18, and help conserve into the future the distinctive landscape feature of the railway embankment as it carves its way along the hillside.

The works to stabilise the embankment and rebuild the path involve digging away all the loose material down to firm foundations and constructing four tiers of stone-filled gabion baskets topped with a new stone path. The front of the baskets that will be visible after the works have been faced with soil filled bags containing a specially selected moorland grass seed mix. Despite the cool autumn weather this seed is already germinating.

The works are due to be completed and the path reopened by mid-November.

During the works archaeologists have been keeping a watching brief to help identify and understand the construction of the railway. A couple of original sleepers were salvaged, one with the track shoe still in place. The profile of how the track was built up using waste from the calcining kilns (red/brown) and cinders from engines (black) can be clearly seen in the photograph below taken during the excavation.

Regular monitoring of the landslip by local residents reported on the Rosedale Abbey Blog had showed the slip getting progressively worse so time was of the essence for these repairs at the beginning of TEL. Now the same residents have been reporting on the works underway and will continue to monitor the site as it recovers.

To sign up for the mailing list for This Exploited Land and find out more about our exciting Landscape Partnership Scheme – see here.

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

Face to face with the past

The British Film Institute’s Britain on Film Archive holds a number of amateur and professional films that feature the North York Moors and provide a treasure trove of 20th century cultural heritage. Each film is of its time – the sensibilities, the landscapes, the cars (or lack of them), the clothes – from a 1927 mediaeval pageant performed at Mount Grace and starring Sir Hugh and Lady Bell; to the Yorkshire Television documentary from 1985, The Unsleeping Eye, which went inside the RAF Fylingdales early warning station and couldn’t be more Cold War centric.

But many of the elements are also familiar – children playing on the beach, boys not wanting to dance, moorland sheep wandering across the road, the appeal of steam locomotives, and the unending desire to record moments in time.

The Yorkshire Moors 1950 features a mother and daughter, and two small dogs, exploring the moors and dales and ending up in Whitby where inevitably they count the 199 steps up to the church. There is presumably a husband/father behind the scenes taking charge as Director and Camera Operator. The North York Moors National Park was designated two years later and the landscape as seen was one of the main reasons for the designation. But its not all pretty scenery; for a few seconds there is a view of ‘disused iron ore mines’, which are probably near Skelton to the north of the present day National Park.

Staithes 1959 heavily features the village of Staithes and its cobble fishing as well as recording the wider countryside round about including the eroding alum industry remains along the cliff edges and shore line which have eroded a whole lot more since.

Without any sound or any intertitle cards the film maker’s motivation is left to the viewer’s imagination.

And then there is The Children of Eskdale made by Yorkshire Television in 1973. It’s a fly on the wall documentary about two generations of a farming family – the Raw family of Fryup Dale.  It’s about ordinary life in the early 1970s that happens to be on a farm in the North York Moors with all that entails. It comes with the low key reflection by John Raw on the dispatching of a couple of bantams “they come but they’ve got to go – that’s farming for you”.

The coldness of the winter landscape contrasts with the warmth and care that the family members have for each other. It ends with a understated act of familial kindness.

Trail news

For Cold War intrigue at Hayburn Wyke – have a look at the new Cleveland Way post by Trail Reporter Dave Greenwood.