CHAPTER I
CONCERNING THE WOLDS

On wide uplands of chalk the air has a raciness, the sunlight a purity and a sparkle, not to be found in low lands. There may be no streams, perhaps not even a pond; you may find few large trees, and scarcely any parks; ruined abbeys and even castles may be conspicuously absent, and yet the landscapes have a power of attracting and fascinating. This is exactly the case with the Wolds of Yorkshire, and their characteristics are not unlike the chalk hills of Sussex, or those great expanses of windswept downs, where the weathered monoliths of Stonehenge have resisted sun and storm for ages.

When we endeavour to analyse the power of attraction exerted by the Wolds, we find it to exist in the sweeping outlines of the land with scarcely a house to be seen for many miles, in the purity of the air owing to the absence of smoke, in the brilliance of the sunlight due to the whiteness of the roads and fields, and in the wonderful breezes that for ever blow across pasture, stubble, and roots.

Unpleasant weather does prevail on this high ground; wet sea-mists sometimes hang there and obliterate every feature; the wind has a power of penetrating the heaviest coats, and the rain is often merciless; but all these things may be said of the Riviera, where one expects uninterrupted days of warm sunshine. Taken as a whole, there is a decided character about Wold weather conditions which appeals to all who belong to the eastern counties of England.

Above the eastern side of the valley, where the Derwent takes its deep and sinuous course towards the alluvial lands, the chalk first makes its appearance in the neighbourhood of Acklam, and farther north at Wharram-le-Street, where picturesque hollows with precipitous sides break up the edge of the cretaceous deposits. Eastwards the high country, scarred here and there with gleaming chalk-pits, and netted with roads of almost equal whiteness, continues to the great headland of Flamborough, where the sea frets and fumes all the summer, and lacerates the cliffs during the stormy months. The masses of flinty chalk have shown themselves so capable of resisting the erosion of the sea that the seaward termination of the Wolds has for many centuries been becoming more and more a pronounced feature of the east coast of England, and if the present rate of encroachment along the low shores of Holderness is continued, this accentuation will become still more conspicuous.

The open roads of the Wolds, bordered by bright green grass and hedges that lean away from the direction of the prevailing wind, give wide views to bare horizons, or glimpses beyond vast stretches of waving corn, of distant country, blue and indistinct, and so different in character to the immediate surroundings as to suggest the ocean. Here and there up against the sky-line appear long dark coppices, and half-hidden in a hollow, a purely agricultural hamlet nestles, its presence being only made apparent by the slender spire or grey tower peeping over the hedges. On a morning when the wind is marshalling the clouds in echelon across the sky, and belts of shadow go a-hunting across the swelling hill-sides, the scenery wears the aspect illustrated here; the sunny, smiling landscape I always expect on chalk uplands.

At Flamborough the white cliffs, topped with the clay deposit of the glacial ages, approach a height of 200 feet; but although the thickness of the chalk is estimated to be from 1,000 to 1,500 feet, the greatest height above sea-level is near Wilton Beacon, where the hills rise sharply from the Vale of York to 808 feet, and the beacon itself is 23 feet lower. On this western side of the plateau the views are extremely good, extending for miles across the flat green vale, where the Derwent and the Ouse, having lost much of the light-heartedness and gaiety characterizing their youth in the dales, take their wandering and converging courses towards the Humber. In the distance you can distinguish a group of towers, a stately blue-grey outline cutting into the soft horizon. It is York Minster. To the north-west lie the beautifully wooded hills that rise above the Derwent, and hold in their embrace Castle Howard, Newburgh Priory, and many a stately park.

Towards the north the descents are equally sudden, and the panorama of the Vale of Pickering, extending from the hills behind Scarborough to Helmsley far away in the west, is most remarkable. Down below lies the circumscribed plain, dead-level except for one or two isolated hillocks. The soil is dark and rich, and there is a marshy appearance everywhere, showing plainly the waterlogged condition of the land even at the present day, reminding us of the fact, discovered through the patient work of such geologists as Professor Kendall, that this level vale, surrounded on all sides by enclosing hills, was in prehistoric times a great lake overflowing into the Vale of York through the narrow valley where the ruins of Kirkham Abbey now stand. Towards Holderness, the inner curve of the crescent of chalk hills slopes gently downwards, a fact easily explained by the continuation of the cretaceous stratum beneath the boulder clay of the surface over the whole of the south-eastern corner of the county.

There is scarcely a district in England to compare with the Yorkshire Wolds for its remarkable richness in the remains of Early Man. As long ago as the middle of last century, when archÆology was more of a pastime than a science, this corner of the country had become famous for the rich discoveries in tumuli made by a few local enthusiasts. That the finds were made then, and not later, is a matter of some regret to the archÆologists of to-day, for with the vastly improved knowledge of the methods and habits of Neolithic man existing to-day, more facts could, no doubt, have been discovered from the priceless material then brought to light. However that may be, sufficient careful exploration and classification has been done to show that a very large population must have dwelt on the Wolds in Neolithic times. Although it is almost impossible to assign any reason for the limitation, these early people appear to have chiefly occupied the area between Filey, Flamborough, Huggate, and Middleton-in-the-Wolds. Flint implements of this same New Stone Age have also been found in great abundance in the neighbourhoods of Malton, Pickering, and Scarborough.

It has been suggested that the flint-bearing character of the Wolds made this part of Yorkshire a district for the manufacture of implements and weapons for the inhabitants of a much larger area, and no doubt the possession of this ample supply of offensive material would give the tribe in possession a power, wealth, and permanence sufficient to account for the wonderful evidences of a great and continuous population. In these districts it is only necessary to go slowly over a ploughed field after a period of heavy rain to be fairly certain to pick up a flint knife, a beautifully chipped arrow-head, or an implement of less obvious purpose, generally described as a scraper. In this way, apart from any finds in barrows, large collections have been formed, and the best of them have gradually left private hands and reached permanent resting-places in the museums at York, Great Driffield,[A] Leeds, Malton, and Scarborough. When bronze-using man reached these parts, the population appears to have continued to be large, for their remains have been discovered all over the Wolds; and when the Prehistoric Iron Age in turn succeeded that period, we find from the burial mounds that there were men still living here.

To those who have never taken any interest in the traces of Early Man in this country, this may appear a musty subject, but to me it is quite the reverse. The long lines of entrenchments, the round tumuli, and the prehistoric sites generally—omitting lake dwellings—are almost invariably to be found upon high and windswept tablelands, wild or only recently cultivated places, where the echoes have scarcely been disturbed since the long-forgotten ages, when a primitive tribe mourned the loss of a chieftain, or yelled defiance at their enemies from their double or triple lines of defence.

In journeying in any direction through the Wolds it is impossible to forget the existence of Early Man, for on the sky-line just above the road will appear a row of two or three rounded projections from the regular line of turf or stubble. They are burial-mounds that the plough has never levelled—heaps of earth that have resisted the disintegrating action of weather and man for thousands of years. If such relics of the primitive inhabitants of this island fail to stir the imagination, then the mustiness must exist in the unresponsive mind rather than in the subject under discussion.

In making an exploration of the Wolds a good starting-place is the old-fashioned town of Malton, whence railways radiate in five directions, including the line to Great Driffield, which takes advantage of the valley leading up to Wharram Percy, and there tunnels its way through the high ground.

Choosing a day when the weather is in a congenial mood for rambling, lingering, or picnicking, or, in other words, when the sun is not too hot, nor the wind too cold, nor the sky too grey, we make our start towards the hills. We go on wheels—it is unimportant how many, or to what they are attached—in order that the long stretches of white road may not become tedious. The stone bridge over the Derwent is crossed, and, glancing back, we see the piled-up red roofs crowded along the steep

ground above the further bank, with the church raising its spire high above its newly-restored nave. Then the wide street of Norton, which is scarcely to be distinguished from Malton, being separated from it only by the river, shuts in the view with its houses of whity-red brick, until their place is taken by hedgerows. To the left stretches the Vale of Pickering, still a little hazy with the remnants of the night’s mist. Straight ahead and to the right the ground rises up, showing a wall chequered with cornfields and root-crops, with long lines of plantations appearing like dark green caterpillars crawling along the horizon.

The first village encountered is Rillington, with a church whose stone spire and the tower it rests upon have the appearance of being copied from Pickering. Inside there is an Early English font, and one of the arcades of the nave belongs to the same period.

Turning southwards a mile or two further on, we pass through the pretty village of Wintringham, and, when the cottages are passed, find the church standing among trees where the road bends, its tower and spire looking much like the one just left behind. The interior is interesting. The pews are all of old panelled oak, unstained, and with acorn knobs at the ends; the floor is entirely covered with glazed red tiles. The late Norman chancel, the plain circular font of the same period, and the massive altar-slab in the chapel, enclosed by wooden screens on the north side, are the most notable features. Under the tower—a position in churches where many interesting objects are often hidden up by curtains and woodwork—you find a quaint list of rules and fines for the bell-ringers, dating from nearly two centuries ago. Coming again into the sunny churchyard, we pass through the shadows cast by the gently moving foliage, and are soon climbing steadily into the smooth undulations of the uplands. At the turning to West Heslerton, a long entrenchment of prehistoric date stretches away on either side for two or three miles. In the seaward direction it goes up to Sherburn Wold, where you find an early camp, and where bronze daggers and celts have been discovered. At a meeting of four roads a little further on, we come to the head of the valley, appearing in the background of the illustration given here; and going to the east we reach Helperthorpe, one of the Wold villages adorned with a new church in the Decorated style. The village gained this ornament through the generosity of the present Sir Tatton Sykes, of Sledmere, whose enthusiasm for church building is not confined to one place. In his own park at Sledmere, four miles to the south, at West Lutton, East Heslerton, and Wansford you may see other examples of modern church building, in which the architect has not been hampered by having to produce a certain accommodation at a minimum cost. And thus in these villages the fact of possessing a modern church does not detract from their charm; instead of doing so, the pilgrim in search of ecclesiastical interest finds much to draw him to them.

As a contrast to Helperthorpe, the adjoining hamlet of Weaverthorpe has a church of very early Norman or possibly Saxon date, and an inscribed Saxon stone a century earlier than the one at Kirkdale, near Kirby Moorside. The inscription is on a sundial over the south porch in both churches; but while that of Kirkdale is quite complete and perfect, this one has words missing at the beginning and end. Haigh suggests that the half-destroyed words should read: ‘LIT OSCETVLI ARCHIEPISCOPI.’ Then, without any doubt, comes: ‘? IN: HONORE: SCE: ANDREAE APOSTOLI: HEREBERTUS WINTONIE · HOC MONASTERIVM FECIT: IN TEMPORE REGN.’ Here the inscription suddenly stops and leaves us in ignorance as to in whose time the monastery was built. There seems little doubt at all that Father Haigh’s suggested completion of the sentence is correct, making it read: ‘IN TEMPORE REGN[ALDI REGIS SECUNDI],’ which would have just filled a complete line.

The coins of Regnald II. of Northumbria bear Christian devices, and it is known that he was confirmed in 942, while his predecessor of that name appears to have been a pagan. If the restoration of the first words of the inscription are correct, the stone cannot be placed earlier than the year 952 (Dr. Stubbs says 958), when Oscetul succeeded Wulstan to the See of York. However, even in a neighbourhood so replete with antiquities this is sufficiently far back in the age of the Vikings to be of thrilling interest, for you must travel far to find another village church with an inscription carved nearly a thousand years ago, at a time when the English nation was still receiving its infusion of Scandinavian strength.

The arch of the tower and the door below the sundial have the narrowness and rudeness suggesting the pre-Norman age, but more than this it is unwise to say.

Not far from the village there are double entrenchments and tumuli, and many prehistoric remains have been brought to light. Among the Neolithic and bronze implements, a stag’s-horn pick was found, and in a barrow, where a skeleton of a young person buried in a contracted position was unearthed, a jet necklace consisting of 122 beads and a pendant was discovered.

And so we go on through the wide sunny valley, watching the shadows sweep across the fields, where often the soil is so thin that the ground is more white than brown, scanning the horizon for tumuli, and taking note of the different characteristics of each village. Not long ago the houses, even in the small towns, were thatched, and even now there are hamlets still cosy and picturesque under their mouse-coloured roofs; but in most instances you see a transition state of tiles gradually ousting the inflammable but beautiful thatch. The tiles all through the Wolds are of the curved pattern, and though cheerful in the brilliance of their colour, and unspeakably preferable to thin blue slates, they do not seem to weather or gather moss and rich colouring in the same manner as the usual flat tile of the southern counties.

We turn aside to look at the rudely carved Norman tympanum over the church door at Wold Newton, and then go up to Thwing, on the rising ground to the south, where we may see what Mr. Joseph Morris claims to be the only other Norman tympanum in the East Riding. A cottage is pointed out as the birthplace of Archbishop Lamplugh, who held the See of York from 1688 to 1691. He was of humble parentage, and it is said that he would often pause in conversation to slap his legs and say, ‘Just fancy me being Archbishop of York!’ The name of the village is derived from the Norse word Thing, meaning an assembly.

Keeping on towards the sea, we climb up out of the valley, and passing Argam Dike and Grindale, come out upon a vast gently undulating plateau with scarcely a tree to be seen in any direction. A few farms are dotted here and there over the landscape, and towards Filey we can see a windmill; but beyond these it seems as though the fierce winds that assail the promontory of Flamborough had blown away everything that was raised more than a few feet above the furrows. The hedges, tired of being buffetted, have given up the struggle and become flattened out to the south-west, and the few trees that have kept themselves alive are thin and half-starved.

The village of Bempton has, however, contrived to maintain itself in its bleak situation, although it is less than two miles from the huge perpendicular cliffs where the Wolds drop into the sea. The cottages have a snug and eminently cheerful look, with their much-weathered tiles and white and ochre coloured walls. From their midst rises the low square tower of the church, and if it ever had a spire or pinnacles in the past, it has none now; for either the north-easterly gales blew them into the sea long ago, or else the people were wise enough never to put such obstructions in the way of the winter blasts. Even the ricks are put close to the cottages for shelter, and although the day seemed warm, with a cool wind, when we left Malton, the temperature seems to have gone down many degrees on this exposed corner of the chalk tableland.

Turning southwards, we get a great view over the low shore of Holderness, curving away into the haze hanging over the ocean, with Bridlington down below, raising to the sky the pair of towers at the west end of its priory—one short and plain, and the other tall and richly ornamented with pinnacles. Going through the streets of sober red houses of the old town, we come at length into a shallow green valley, where the curious Gypsy Race flows intermittently along the fertile bottom. The afternoon sunshine floods the pleasant landscape with a genial glow, and throws long blue shadows under the trees of the park surrounding Boynton Hall, the seat of the Stricklands. The family has been connected with the village for several centuries, and some of their richly-painted and gilded monuments can be seen in the church. One of these is to Sir William Strickland, Bart., and another to Lady Strickland, his wife, who was a sister of Sir Hugh Cholmley, the gallant but unfortunate defender of Scarborough Castle during the Civil War. In his memoirs Sir Hugh often refers to visits paid him by ‘my sister Strickland.’

After passing Thorpe Hall the road goes up to the breezy spot, commanding wide views, where the little church of Rudstone stands conspicuously by the side of an enormous monolith. Although the church tower is Norman, it would appear to be a recent arrival on the scene in comparison with the stone. Antiquaries are in fairly general agreement that huge standing stones of this type belong to some very remote period, and also that they are ‘associated with sepulchral purposes’; and the fact that they are usually found in churchyards would suggest that they were regarded with a traditional veneration. The stone is 25 feet 4 inches high, and from a statement made in 1769 by a Mr. Willan, we are led to believe that its depth underground is equal to its height above, ‘as appeared from an experiment made by the late Sir William Strickland.’ It is not known whether this ‘experiment’ consisted in digging down to the lowest extremity of the stone; the language seems to suggest otherwise, and the total length of the stone must remain hypothetical until such operations take place. The rustics of the locality incline towards a sensational depth, for, evidently based on the stories of the half-forgotten squire’s digging, they say that they have heard tell how that when an attempt was made to find how far down the stone went, those who were digging found that it was impossible to get to the bottom, and gave it up as a hopeless task. And thus you may find a group of peasants in the churchyard on fine Sunday evenings staring hard at the furrowed surface of the monolith, and thinking, Heaven knows what, of the profound regions from which their stone springs. The interior of the church is remarkable for its fine modern organ, placed there by the owner of Thorpe Hall, who is also the organist. To find the requisite space the instrument had to be placed at the west end of the nave, but it is controlled from the chancel, the necessary motive power being generated in a small building in the churchyard. The present generation of Rudstonians should not find themselves dull when they are given such excellent music and have a subject for so much profound meditation as the stone.

The road past the church drops steeply down into the pretty village, and, turning northwards, takes us to the bend of the valley, where North Burton lies, which we passed earlier in the day; so we go to the left, and find ourselves at Kilham, a fair-sized village on the edge of the chalk hills. Like Rudstone and a dozen places in its neighbourhood, Kilham is situated in a district of extraordinary interest to the archÆologist, the prehistoric discoveries being exceedingly numerous. Chariot burials of the Early Iron Age have been discovered here, as well as large numbers of Neolithic implements. There is a beautiful Norman doorway in the nave of the church, ornamented with chevron mouldings in a lavish fashion. Far more interesting than this, however, are the fonts in the two villages of Cottam and Cowlam, lying close together, although separated by a thinly-wooded hollow, about five miles to the west. Cottam Church and the farm adjoining it are all that now exists of what must once have been an extensive village. It is, indeed, no easy matter to find the place, the church being small and inconspicuous, and the roads pass it by in total indifference.

We come to a gate by a cottage, isolated in a great space of corn and root crops, and find it leads down to the big farm of Cottam. A little beyond it appears a small red brick building of recent date, showing all the signs of having been locked up and deserted years ago. This is not the case, however, for it is still in use, although for what other purpose than as a private chapel for the farmer and his family I can scarcely imagine. In this depressing little building we find a Late Norman font of cylindrical form, covered with the wonderfully crude carvings of that period. There are six subjects, the most remarkable being the huge dragon with a long curly tail in the act of swallowing St. Margaret, whose skirts and feet are shown inside the capacious jaws, while the head is beginning to appear somewhere behind the dragon’s neck. To the right is shown a gruesome representation of the martyrdom of St. Lawrence, and then follow Adam and Eve by the Tree of Life (a twisted piece of foliage), the martyrdom of St. Andrew, and what seems to be another dragon.

On each side of the bridle-road by the church you can trace without the least difficulty the ground-plan of many houses under the short turf. The early writers do not mention Cottam, and so far I have come upon no explanation for the wiping out of this village. Possibly its extinction was due to the Black Death in 1349. Mr. Cole of Wetwang thinks it significant that there were three vicars of his church (five miles to the south-west) between 1349 and 1352.

It is about four miles by road to Cowlam, although the two churches are only about a mile and a half apart; and when Cowlam is reached there is not much more in the way of a village than at Cottam. The only way to the church from the road is through an enormous stack-yard, speaking eloquently of the large crops produced on the farm. As in the other instance, a search has to be made for the key, entailing much perambulation of the farm.

At length the door is opened, and the splendid font at once arrests the eye. More noticeable than anything else in the series of carvings are the figures of two men wrestling, similar to those on the font from the village of Hutton Cranswick, now preserved in York Museum. The two figures are shown bending forwards, each with his hands clasped round the waist of the other, and each with a foot thrown forward to trip the other, after the manner of the Westmorland wrestlers to be seen at the Grasmere sports. It seems to me scarcely possible to doubt that the subject represented is Jacob wrestling with the man at Penuel. Although the Bible account plainly indicates that Jacob struggled with some God-like power, yet the actual words used are: ‘And Jacob was left alone. And there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day,’ and the additional piece of information describing how the patriarch’s thigh was put out of joint would be sufficient to prompt the Norman craftsman to give the figure the ordinary form of a man. The carving to the right shows the Temptation of Adam and Eve, the ‘general father of us all’ being placed on the opposite side of the tree to the position given to him at Cottam. Then follow the Massacre of the Innocents—an ambitious subject; the Visit of the Magi, Mary being shown with the child on her knee; and a Bishop holding a crozier in his left hand. The period of this elaborate work would appear to be Late Norman.

At Sledmere, the adjoining village, everything has a well-cared-for and reposeful aspect. Its position in a shallow depression has made it possible for trees to grow, so that we find the road overhung by a green canopy in remarkable contrast to the usual bleakness of the Wolds. The park surrounding Sir Tatton Sykes’ house is well wooded, owing to much planting on what were bare slopes not very many years ago, and in the autumn the orange and red colours of the beeches and the brown carpets beneath them are so beautiful that the scenery has no touch of sadness even in November.

The village well is dignified with a domed roof raised on tall columns, put up about seventy years ago by the previous Sir Tatton to the memory of his father, Sir Christopher Sykes; the inscription telling how much the Wolds were transformed through his energy ‘in building, planting, and enclosing,’ from a bleak and barren tract of country into what is now considered one of the most productive and best-cultivated districts of Yorkshire. The late Sir Tatton Sykes was the sort of man that Yorkshire folk come near to worshipping. He was of that hearty, genial, conservative type that filled the hearts of the farmers with pride. On market days all over the Riding one of the always fresh subjects of conversation was how Sir Tatton was looking. A great pillar put up to his memory by the road leading to Garton can be seen over half Holderness. So great was the conservatism of this remarkable squire that years after the advent of railways he continued to make his journey to Epsom, for the Derby, on horseback.

A stone’s-throw from the house stands the church, rebuilt, with the exception of the tower, in 1898 by Sir Tatton. There is no wall surrounding the churchyard, neither is there ditch, nor bank, nor the slightest alteration in the smooth turf; and now that all the gravestones have been laid flush with the grass, the church stands among the trees for all the world as though it had merely strayed into the park, and was not fixed to the ground at all. Local opinion made numerous comments on this wiping out of the churchyard, but the villagers have received so many good things from the same hands as those that thus disturbed the memorials of their ancestors, that they have no grounds for complaint.

The church, designed by Mr. Temple Moore, is carried out in the style of the Decorated period in a stone that is neither red nor pink, but something in between the two colours. The exterior is not remarkable, but the beauty of the internal ornament is most striking. Everywhere you look, whether at the detail of carved wood or stone, the workmanship is perfect, and without a trace of that crudity to be found in the carvings of so many modern churches. The clustered columns, the timber roof, and the tracery of the windows are all dignified, in spite of the richness of form they display. Only in the upper portion of the screen does the ornament seem a trifle worried and out of keeping with the rest of the work.

Sledmere also boasts a tall and very beautiful ‘Eleanor’ cross, erected about ten years ago, and has reached a certain fame from Sir Tatton’s cattle and horses.

As we continue towards the setting sun, the deeply-indented edges of the Wolds begin to appear, and the roads generally make great plunges into the valley of the Derwent. The weather, which has been fine all day, changes at sunset, and great indigo clouds, lined with gold, pile themselves up fantastically in front of the setting sun. Lashing rain, driven by the wind with sudden fury, pours down upon the hamlet lying just below, but leaves Wharram-le-Street without a drop of moisture. The widespread views all over the Howardian Hills and the sombre valley of the Derwent become impressive, and an awesomeness of Turneresque gloom, relieved by sudden floods of misty gold, gives the landscape an element of unreality.

Against this background the outline of the church of Wharram-le-Street stands out in its rude simplicity. On the western side of the tower, where the light falls upon it, we can see the extremely early masonry that suggests pre-Norman times. It cannot be definitely called a Saxon church, but although ‘long and short work’ does not appear, there is every reason to associate this lonely little building with the middle of the eleventh century. There are mason marks consisting of crosses and barbed lines on the south wall of the nave. The opening between the tower and the nave is an almost unique feature, having a Moorish-looking arch of horseshoe shape resting on plain and clumsy capitals. As for the churchyard, I have seldom seen anything less cared for, the ground having practically nothing to differentiate it from the surrounding meadowland, for it is simply a piece of rough grass, without any paths or approach suggesting an ordinary village church; and yet there are a fair number of houses—in fact, more of a nucleus than several of the smaller hamlets.

The name Wharram-le-Street reminds us forcibly of the existence in remote times of some great way over this tableland. Unfortunately, there is very little sure ground to go upon, despite the additional fact of there being another place, Thorpe-le-Street, some miles to the south. Evidences of a Roman road going from Malton through Wharram-le-Street towards Beverley have been discovered, but this and three or four others are based on slender materials, and are too much built up of conjecture, to be of great interest. Even the Roman thoroughfare from York towards Flamborough is not easily discoverable, and the only fact that appears to be clearly ascertained, besides the unearthing of hoards of Roman coins, such as the one consisting of 12,000 pieces near Cowlam, on the line of its supposed route, is the location of the Derventio of the first Antonine Itinerary at Stamford Bridge. Traces of the important road southwards from that point have been found at different places on the way to Brough, where the Humber was crossed by boat.

With the light fast failing we go down steeply into the hollow where North Grimstone nestles, and, crossing the streams which flow over the road, come to the pretty old church. The tower is heavily mantled with ivy, and has a statue of a Bishop on its west face. A Norman chancel arch with zigzag moulding shows in the dim interior, and there is just enough light to see the splendid font, of similar age and shape to those at Cowlam and Cottam. A large proportion of the surface is taken up with a wonderful ‘Last Supper,’ and on the remaining space the carvings show the ‘Descent from the Cross,’ and a figure, possibly representing St. Nicholas, the patron saint of the church.

When the lights of Malton glimmer in the valley this day of exploration is at an end, and much of the Wold country has been seen; but many other villages, prehistoric sites, early churches, and beautiful landscapes lie more to the south. We have seen enough, however, to make it plain that even an apparently bare plateau of chalk can be full of absorbing interest as well as considerable charm.