The original suggestion that I should undertake this task came from the Vicar of Pickering, and it is due to his co-operation and to the great help received from Dr John L. Kirk that this history has attained its present form. But beyond this I have had most valuable assistance from so many people in Pickering and the villages round about, that to mention them all would almost entail reprinting the local directory. I would therefore ask all those people who so kindly put themselves to great trou

Every preface in olden time was wont to begin with the address "Lectori Benevolo"--the indulgence of the reader being thereby invoked and, it was hoped, assured. In that the writer of this at least would have his share, even though neither subject, nor author, that he introduces, may stand in need of such a shield. Local histories are yearly becoming more numerous. In few places is there more justification for one than here. I. The beauty of the scenery is not well known. This book should do som

Concerning those which follow The Friar's Tale. Chaucer. In the North Riding of Yorkshire, there is a town of such antiquity that its beginnings are lost far away in the mists of those times of which no written records exist. What this town was originally called, it is impossible to say, but since the days of William the Norman (a pleasanter sounding name than "the Conqueror,") it has been consistently known as Pickering, although there has always been a tendency to spell the name with y's and t

The Forest and Vale of Pickering in Palæolithic and Pre-Glacial Times. The Palæolithic or Old Stone Age preceded and succeeded the Great Glacial Epochs in the Glacialid. In that distant period of the history of the human race when man was still so primitive in his habits that traces of his handiwork are exceedingly difficult to discover, the forest and Vale of Pickering seem to have been without human inhabitants. Remains of this Old Stone Age have been found in many parts of England, but they a

The Vale of Pickering in the Lesser Ice Age Long before even the earliest players took up their parts in the great Drama of Human Life which has been progressing for so long in this portion of England, great changes came about in the aspect of the stage. These transformations date from the period of Arctic cold, which caused ice of enormous thickness to form over the whole of north-western Europe. Throughout this momentous age in the history of Yorkshire, as far as we can tell, the flaming sunse

The Early Inhabitants of the Forest and Vale of Pickering Edward Sandford Martin. THE NEOLITHIC OR NEW STONE AGE Succeeded the Old Stone Age and overlapped the Bronze Age. THE BRONZE AGE Succeeded the New Stone Age and overlapped the Early Iron Age. THE EARLY IRON AGE Succeeded the Bronze Age and continued in Britain until the Roman Invasion in B.C. 54. (All these periods overlapped.) The Palæolithic men had reached England when it was part of the continent of Europe, but after the lesser Glacia

How the Roman Occupation of Britain affected the Forest and Vale of Pickering B.C. 55 to A.D. 418 The landings of Julius Caesar, in 55 and 54 B.C., and the conflicts between his legions and the southern tribes of Britain, were little more, in the results obtained, than a reconnaissance in force, and Yorkshire did not feel the effect of the Roman invasion until nearly a century after the first historic landing. The real invasion of Britain began in A.D. 43, when the Emperor Claudius sent Aulus Pl

The Forest and Vale in Saxon Times A.D. 418 to 1066 There seems little doubt that the British remained a barbarous people throughout the four centuries of their contact with Roman influences, for had they progressed in this period they would have understood in some measure the great system by which the Imperial power had held the island with a few legions and a small class of residential officials. Having failed to absorb the new military methods, when left to themselves, there was no unifying i

The Forest and Vale in Norman Times A.D. 1066-1154 In the early years of the reign of William I., when the northern counties rose against his rule, the Pickering district seems to have required more drastic treatment than any other. In 1069 the Conqueror spent the winter in the north of England, and William of Malmesbury describes how "he ordered the towns and fields of the whole district to be laid waste; the fruits and grain to be destroyed by fire or by water ... thus the resources of a once

The Forest and Vale in the Time of the Plantagenets A.D. 1154 to 1485 The story of these three centuries is told to a most remarkable extent in the numerous records of the Duchy of Lancaster relating to the maintenance of the royal Forest of Pickering. They throw a clear light on many aspects of life at Pickering, and by picking out some of the more picturesque incidents recorded we may see to what extent the severe forest laws kept in check the poaching element in the neighbourhood. We can also

The Forest and Vale in Tudor Times A.D. 1485 to 1603 The Wars of the Roses had allowed the royal possessions to fall into a state of great disorder, so that the Duchy of Lancaster records belonging to the early years of the reign of Henry VII. contain many references to the necessity for vigorously checking infringements on the forest that had been taking place. A patent dated 26th of October 1489, 1 says, "To our t[rusty] and w[elbeloved] Brian Sandford Stuard of our honnor of Pykeryng in our C

The Forest and Vale in Stuart Times A.D. 1603 to 1714 As in the two preceding chapters the records belonging to the Stuart period are so numerous that one is almost embarrassed at the mass of detailed information that has been preserved, and it is only possible to select some of the most interesting facts. Commencing with the parish registers, however, we are confronted with a gap of about thirteen years. After having been kept with regularity since 1559, there appears on p. 48 of the earliest b

The Forest and Vale in Georgian Times, 1714 to 1837 With the accession of King George the First in 1714 we commence a new section of the history of Pickering, a period notable in its latter years for the sweeping away to a very large extent of the superstitions and heathen practices which had survived until the first quarter of the nineteenth century. The town had probably altered very little in its general appearance since the time of the Restoration. Most of the roofs were thatched; the castle

The Forest and Vale from Early Victorian Times to the Present Day A.D. 1837 to 1905 This most recent stage in the development of Pickering is marked by the extinction of the few remaining customs that had continued to exist since mediæval times. One of the most hardy of these survivals was the custom of "Riding t' fair," as it was generally called. It only died out about twenty years ago when the Pickering Local Board purchased the tolls from the Duchy of Lancaster, so that it has been possible

Concerning the Villages and Scenery of the Forest and Vale of Pickering The Market Cross at Thornton-le-Dale. The stocks are quite modern, replacing the old ones which were thrown away when the new ones were made. The scenery of this part of Yorkshire is composed of two strikingly opposite types, that of perfectly wild, uncultivated moorlands broken here and there by wooded dales, and the rich level pasture lands that occupy the once marshy district of the Vale. The villages, some phases of whos

Concerning the Zoology of the Forest and Vale The great expanses of wild moorland, the deep, heavily wooded valleys, and the rich and well-watered level country included in the scope of this book would lead one to expect much of the zoology of the Pickering district, and one is not disappointed. That the wild life is ample and interesting will be seen from the following notes on the rarer varieties which Mr Oxley Grabham of the York Museum has kindly put together. On THE MOORS the Curlew, the Go

Akerman, J. Yonge, Remains of Pagan Saxondom, 1852-55. Allen, J.R., Monumental History of the Early British Church, 1889. Anecdotes and Manners of a few Ancient and Modern Oddities, 1806. Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Journal of. Associated Architectural Societies' Reports, vol. xii. Atkinson, John C, A Glossary of the Cleveland Dialect, 1876; Forty Years in a Moorland Parish, 1891. Bateman, Thomas, Ten Years' Diggings, 1861. Bawdwen, Rev. W., Domesday Book, 1809. Belch

The living itself, at the time of the Norman Conquest, came into the possession of the Crown, and remained at the king's gift till Henry I. annexed it to the Deanery of York. It thus became one of the Dean's peculiars, until in the last century his property was vested in the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, and the patronage transferred to the Archbishop....