Ancient Routes across the moors

Exploring the ancient routes across the moors around Farndale

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Medieval routes across the North York Moors

Farndale on the Cockan Cross on Waingate

Raymond Hayes undertook a survey of the roads tracks and pannier trods across the North York Moors for the National Park in 1988, and in doing so revealed the extent of routes of medieval times and earlier across the moors above Farndale. To follow these old trackways, especially the ridgeways, gives a unique insight into the toils and difficulties of travel in the middle ages. They quickly become muddy and, in winter, snowbound. There were few guide stones until after 1711 when the Justices at Northallerton ordered Guide Posts to be erected at crossways throughout the North Riding.

The oldest routes across the moors were almost certainly ridgeways following the high ground between the dales, such as Blakey Rigg and Rudland Rigg. They usually kept on firm ground avoiding bogs or rocky ground. On slopes they tended to form hollow-ways. These were narrow and in winter the sides collapsed, blocking the track, or they were blocked by snow. Hence the tendency was to try to avoid bad sections by using alternative ridges, so forming parallel hollow-ways as found on the Thurkilisti on Skiplam Ridge or north of Spaunton and Lastingham.

Not until Roman times was a well paved Causeway constructed: Wade's Causeway, part of which remain between Stape and Lease Rigg.

(Old Roads and Pannierways in North East Yorkshire, Raymond H Hayes MBE, FSA, 1988, page 7).

Besides the Roman road, Wade’s Causeway (see below), many other routes must have been used, though probably were never paved. Packhorses, oxen and donkeys were the main means of transport, and the trackways over the moors – the Hambleton Street, Magna Via, Thurchilisti and others, would all be in use. Every moorland ridge had its trackway, similar to the present turf roads, hollow tracks marked by cairns and burial mounds of the pre-Roman era. (A History of Helmsley Rievaulx and District, editor, J McDonnell, 1963, page 47).

We have several references to roads in the Ryedale Charters. (Old Roads and Pannierways in North East Yorkshire, Raymond H Hayes MBE, FSA, 1988, page 8, Appendix B).

Fish, salt, lime and coal were carried along these tracks from early medieval times till right into the nineteenth century, and were joined at various periods by many other commodities such as alum (from Guisborough to West Riding) and contraband silks and spirits not to mention the cattle and sheep of the Scottish drovers. (A History of Helmsley Rievaulx and District, editor, J McDonnell, 1963, page 69).

Bridging the uncultivated wild between England’s villages and little towns ran the roads trodden by growing numbers of men and horses. The metalled highways with which Rome had spanned the country had long become a ghostly network, their paved surfaces defaced, their causeways broken by quarrying, and their course deflected to serve local needs. The Medieval road did not run straight from city to city. It meandered round field, park and pale, respecting a thousand local ‘liberties’ and quirks of history. It was not surfaced for wheeled traffic or swift travelling. It was merely a grassy track way for horses, carts, cattle and sheep. It was not so much a road as a route over which travellers had a right to pass. The proprietors along its course were under an obligation to keep it open. No one might raise a fence across it, or dung heaps, or use it for quarrying stone and gravel. Such encroachments were subject to fines. In winter, the soft roads became quagmires, in summer, a maze of hard baked hoof folds. So much of the countryside was waste, it was easy to make a detour across adjoining land. This created a multiplicity of tracks and made it easy to lose the way. (The Medieval Foundation of England, 1967, Arthur Bryant, page 184).

Medieval roads were often distinguished as strata regalis or regalis via, or royal roads; magna via, a great road; and via communa, public roads and village streets.

Map showing the ancient routes of Thurkilisti, waingate, monkegate and Blakey Ridge as well as the Roman road known as Wade’s Causeway.

Walter Espec’s second grant of land to Rievaulx in 1145 specifically mentions four important trackways on the moors in the course of its description of the boundaries of the grant. These are: sperragate; the Magna Via or great road over Roppa Moor, Thurkilisti, coming from the direction of Welburn and connecting with this Great Road far up Bilsdale East Side; and another, less surely identifiable Magna Via on Bilsdale West side. (A History of Helmsley Rievaulx and District, editor, J McDonnell, 1963, page 72).

The age of long journeys, 650 to 800 CE

For Northumbrian aristocracy, the century and a half from c 650 to 800 was an age of journeys. When they came of age, Wilfred and Biscop travelled abroad. They were followed in 690 by Willibrod, and in the eighth century by other missionaries. A century later Alcuin made visits to and eventually departed for the continent. The papal Legatine Mission visited Northumbria and Mercia in 786.. Travel was an apprenticeship for life and the prelude to a monastery’s foundation. Those who underwent monastic preparation abroad had the opportunity to observe leaders in different parts of Europe, and so found themselves in demand as royal advisers at home (Journeys from Jarrow, Richard Morris, 2004 Jarrow Lecture, page 11 to 12).

Horses must have been important. Wearmouth-Jarrow was an aristocratic house, and not only is it likely that horses were kept and bred for local travel, but the horses of visitors and couriers would require feeding and stabling, in turn requiring buildings, paddocks for grazing, and accommodation for ostlers. (Morris, page 16).

Waingate

The ancient route across Rudland Rigg, known as waingate, once ran from the market place in Kirkbymoorside to Battersby and Stokesley. It was also a pilgrimage route which linked Rievaulx, Kirkdale and Kirkbymoorside to Baysdale Abbey and Guisborough Priory to the north.

The lane leading north from Fadmore was called waingate from Anglo Saxon Waen Way or Waggon road. It leads into the limestone hills at Boonhill, 800 feet, where at SE668909 part of a bronze founders hoard was ploughed up at different times between 1966 and 1975. There were five broken socketed bronze axes and pieces of sword and spear, all dating to about 700 to 1,000 BCE. (Old Roads and Pannierways in North East Yorkshire, Raymond H Hayes MBE, FSA, 1988 page 46).

Waingate, the ancient track along Rudland Rigg - Kirby Rode

On the northern reaches of the escarpment of Rudland Rigg is the Cammon Stone (SE 62611 99966)(from cam maen or bank stone), a standing stone that sits just beside the main track. The stone is about a metre and a half tall and leans towards the west. The southern views from the stone look down along Bransdale, the axis of the stone is also aligned in this direction, which is probably no coincidence. There are a number of faded letters carved onto the western face of the stone. Antiquarians had speculated as to whether these letters were Phoenician in origin, but they are actually Hebrew and spell out the word halleluiah. They are thought to be the work of the Reverend W Strickland, Vicar of Ingleby. Strickland is thought to be responsible for carving a number of inscriptions in this area. There is a second stone, a large flat slab. No one knows whether this slab ever stood upright.

On Rudland Ridge stands a very weathered stone monolith, the cammon stone, a Celtic name meaning ‘crokked stone on the bank’. It bears a Hebrew inscription which was something of a puzzle until it was noticed that a Bransdale mill bore a long inscription in Greek, Latin and Hebrew carved by a vicar of Ingleby Greehow in 1820. As he would pass the cammon stone it is very likely that he was responsible for the Hebrew Hallelujah.

Cammon Stone, August 2025

Cockan Cross (SE 632991) is an inscribed shaft in a socket stone.

There is another cross at SE 637980) inscribed Kirby Rode.

Thurkilisti

Waingate ran parallel to an ancient route known as Thurkilisti which ran between Welburn (immediately south of Kirkdale) to Cleveland via Skiplam Moor to Bilsdale east. Walter Espec who granted the land for Rievaulx Abbey, provided an enlarged area to the monastery in 1145 and referred to the boundary of this grant of lands with reference to Thurkilisti running from Welburn to Bilsdale Eastside. (Family, Faith and Fortification: Yorkshire 1066-1250, Sarah Speight, 1993 page 70).

Thurkilsti or Thurkil’s Hill Road is one of the four important trackways over the moors near Helmsley mentioned in Walter Espec’s second grant of land to Rievaulx Abbey in 1145 AD. It still remains in part in its medieval state. (Old Roads and Pannierways in North East Yorkshire, Raymond H Hayes MBE, FSA, 1988, page 41).

“Thurkil’s hill road” (sti or sty meant a ladder, hence a steep path) has been traced as running approximately north-north-west from Welburn, via Wethercote (Skiplam), converging on the Roppa Moor Magna Via from the east side of Bonfield Gill, to join it at Stump Cross two miles south of Badger Stone. (A History of Helmsley Rievaulx and District, editor, J McDonnell, 1963, page 72).

The transport system of the later medieval period reflected the foundation of routes from much earlier. Green paths ran from compact villages to flatts of arable, meadows, woods, commons, mills, watering places and other usable assets. Longer-distance routes were superimposed on the local system within the cultivated area but in the commons followed more natural routes, and even shortcut through fields when crops had been lifted. Many sloping hill paths were called 'sties', like Holthorpesti at Hovingham or Hasty in Bilsdale and the great Thurkilsti that ran from Welburn to Cleveland. Parishes had routes for tithe movement to a mother church. Rigg routes rather than valleys provided ways whereby packhorses could avoid the soft ground. (Life in Ryedale in the 14^th century, J H Rushton, Ryedale Historian, Volume 8, 1976, page 19).

It is possible that Mesolithic hunters made tracks through the forests on the high ground, as the valley bottoms were wet and boggy and remained so until monks drained them from the twelfth century. It is likely that one such ancient route was a route that came to be called Thurchilesti, an ancient route from Welburn, over Skiplam Moor, to Bilsdale east, and Cleveland. Waingate along Rudland Rigg may have been another.

When Walter Espec gave a second tranche of land to Rievaulx in 1145, the description of the land continued: and thence between the plain of Tilleston and the edge of the wood as far as a certain ditch opposite where Depedala and Lithlebec meet, and thence the whole valley of Lithlebec as far as Raudepade, and thence by the great road to the fork of the roads, and thence by the road on the right above Smidhesdala to the heap of stones which is called Bacbeler, and thence by the way back above Thriplesdala to the great road which comes from Thurchilesti and by that road as far as the mese divides they tend towards Cleveland above the hill of the river, and below the hill by the stream which is called Willemsbeck and is divided between me and John Engel, as far as the aforesaid water which runs through Bildesdale. And furthermore I grant them all their easements in the manors [sic] and in the royal forest of Helmeslake, namely material and wood for their own uses … (Rievaulx Cartulary).

J C Akinson commented that Thurkersti is named in the last document but one in the Cartularium in such terms as to prove that it is as much at home on Skiplam Moor as here, just on the confines of the limits of Cleveland. In the document referred to, six loads of turves are granted to Lucy, William Fowler' daughter, year by year, in mora nostra de Skipnum super Thurkirsti. Thurkelsti, then, is the name of a "sti " or " sty ", that is to say, of a pathway or "gate," or roadway, of very considerable length, the two points just under mention being certainly six miles apart, or nearly, — if not more. There is a roadway leading over Skiplam Moor in a north-westerly direction, passing close by Wither Cote, which, for a mile and a half to two miles from that point, is called Aldergate, and then onwards Rollgate. This roadway, old enough to have the old North English term "gate" applied to it, is continuous with the probable "via de Thurchilesti," from which comes the "magna via" crossing Tripsdale, as noted above. From the Tripsdale vicinity this road passes on to the foot of Hasty Bank, where it is joined by the direct road past Chop Yat through Bilsdale to Helmsley, both being merged in the high-road through Broughton to Stokesley. From Skiplam Moor, in the other direction, this old road proceeds past Skiplam into the high road leading to Kirkby Moorside, and there can hardly be any doubt that the Turchilesti of this document is simply the name of the ancient tracked route from Kirkby Moorside into Cleveland ; a conclusion which derives no little force from the fact that in No. LV. The vicinity of a part of the divim of Welburn to Turchilsti adverted to.

(Cartulary of Rievaulx, Edited by J C Atkinson, 1889, page 19).

Its southern end is doubtful but it could have begun at York then come via Greystoke or Henderskelfe Castle (now Castle Howard). It definitely passes Thurkle Wood south west of Sunley Cote and Sunley Hill (SE682827) referred to as Sunnolf’s Haugr (Howe) in the 12th century Rievaulx Charters.

At Welburn Hall the line follows a footpath still marked by hunting gates to Kirkdale road which it crosses at SE 680855.

It follows the modern lane called Skiplam Road past Lund Court and Skiplam Grange, one of the most important Rievaulx farms to which the last abbot retired. Roman coins were found in the vicinity, though Parker says they were from a Quarry near Westercoate. Rising gradually to 800 feet on the limestone ridge, it is called Aldergate. At SE 643901 it is marked by a tumulus; nearby is another in Pinderdale Wood in which jet ornaments were found.

The Hodge Beck Valley adjacent to Skiplam Grange Thirkilsti likely passed along the high ground passing through Skiplam Grange

Westercoate Farm The track leading towards Aldergate Bank

From the top of Skiplam Nab it descends Roll or Rowlgate Bank onto the Hag Common, moorland until ploughed out recently. Before this ploughing the Thirkilisti at SE 627913 was a raised track some 2 feet wide and 3 feet high, very like a Roman Rd. Here several tracks diverge, the present one keeps on the dry ridge, but the earlier one is lost in a bog. In this bog at SC 626922 stands a very weathered guide stone. On its east side is written: This is the way to Stokesley; southside, The way to Kirby; north, This to Gis Bo, and West, This is the way to Bilsdale. At SC 624923, a few 100 metres northwest is the Hanging stone, probably formerly the Lawton Stone. Many hollow-ways turn east-north-east at the guide stone, some making towards Mitchell Hagg to a very large slab heap at SC624923 with footings of a dwelling on the east side.

The Thurkilisti continues due north on Bransdale Ridge with the boundary stones and a series of cairns, marked tumuli on the maps.

At Stump Cross (SE 607982), only the massive base and a piece of a shaft remain.

A short distance to the north west the Thurkilisti was joined by the Magna Via, ‘the great road coming from the Thirkilisti) as it was called in 1145 AD. … Very little trace of the line of the Magna Via remains.

A mile north-north-west is Crookstaff Hill and at NZ 605004 is the Badger Stone, a natural rock which is mentioned in Espec’s Charter of 1145 AD.

The Thurkilisti swings northeast to Jenny Bradley on the Rudland Rigg road. This stone, Jenny Bradley (NZ 611022 at 1,397 feet OD) is a squat shaft in a base stone, with the 1888 boundary stone alongside her.

The road follows closely the western edge of the Cleveland Hills, passing the Botton, or Burton Howes (NZ 608033), Bronze Age burial mounds of turf, excavated by R S Close, though previously disturbed. Professor GW Dimbleby described the results of his pollen analysis of them in The Ancient Forest of Blackamore. It is difficult to realise these mounds of turf were raised in clearings of a dense forest.

The descent to Battersby Bank follows zigzags from NZ 599062. It is joined by several footpaths. The local name for this bank is Turkey Nab. Mr R B Turton was one of the first to make the deduction that it is derived from Thurkilisti Nab. He names three Thurkylls, one in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in 915 AD; another Thirkyll, a jarl who landed in 1069 and plundered York, and Thorkyll de Cliveland, who is mentioned in the Whitby Cartulary.

Thurkilisti on Skiplam Moor, c 1955

(Old Roads and Pannierways in North East Yorkshire, Raymond H Hayes MBE, FSA, 1988, page 41 to 43).

Thurkil may have been an earl involved in the early rebellion against William the Conqueror, before the Conqueror established control over the northern lands after the Harrying of the North.

After the Battle of Hastings, in 1068 Edwin and Morcar rose in revolt, supported by Gospatric, Earl of Northumbria. Early in 1069, Edgar the Ætheling revolted and attacked York. Although William returned to York and built another castle, Edgar remained free, and in the autumn he joined up with King Sweyn. The Danish king had brought a large fleet to England and attacked not only York but Exeter and Shrewsbury. York was captured by the combined forces of Edgar and Sweyn. Edgar was proclaimed king by his supporters. William responded swiftly, ignoring a continental revolt in Maine, and symbolically wore his crown in the ruins of York on Christmas Day 1069.

A.D. 1069. This year died Aldred, Archbishop of York; and he is there buried, at his see. He died on the day of Protus and Hyacinthus, having held the see with much dignity ten years wanting only fifteen weeks. Soon after this came from Denmark three of the sons of King Sweyne with two hundred and forty ships, together with Earl Esborn and Earl Thurkill, into the Humber; where they were met by the child Edgar, and Earl Waltheof, and Merle-Sweyne, and Earl Gospatric with the Northumbrians, and all the landsmen; riding and marching full merrily with an immense army: and so all unanimously advanced to York; where they stormed and demolished the castle, and won innumerable treasures therein; slew there many hundreds of Frenchmen, and led many with them to the ships; but, ere that the shipmen came thither, the Frenchmen had burned the city, and also the holy minster of St. Peter had they entirely plundered, and destroyed with fire. When the king heard this, then went he northward with all the force that he could collect, despoiling and laying waste the shire withal; whilst the fleet lay all the winter in the Humber, where the king could not come at them. The king was in York on Christmas Day, and so all the winter on land, and came to Winchester at Easter. Bishop Egelric, who was at Peterborough, was this year betrayed, and led to Westminster; and his brother Egelwine was outlawed. This year also died Brand, Abbot of Peterborough, on the fifth before the calends of December. (The Anglo Saxon Chronicle, 1069).

The Blakey Ridge Route

Blakey Ridge, sometimes Blakehow, blakehou and the more de Blackow means the Black Hill.

This important ridge road runs from its junction with the modern A170 at Keldholme, 166 feet above sea level to 1400 feet at Ralph Cross and on to Castleton.

The route from Keldholm passed an old horse ford at Yoadwath by a water corn mill. The area is thought to have been known as Haverbegam in a record of about 1200, and may have belonged to Keldholm Priory.

The steep Yoadwath Bank climbed to join the alternative modern road to Hutton passing on the edge of Douthwaitedale.

The road passes through the village of Hutton-le-Hole and by the Ryedale Folk Museum. Here there were formerly three fords where the thirsty horses could drink, and two inns for the equally dry carters. Just west of Barmoor at SE 698907, at the foot of Hutton Nab, there are three burial mounds where a cremation urn of mid bronze age was found.

The Lion Inn at Blakey stands at 1,300 feet and must have been a welcome site to wayfarers in the past, as it is at present to anyone caught in the severe blizzards of the moorland winters. … The first mention of Blakey occurs in the Charter of Guisborough Priory in 1200. It is called Blakenhow or Blakey How, which simply means Black Howe, referring to the large tumulus that stands behind the inn, with a boundary stone on top. It has a deep hollow in the centre. No record of its excavation exists, but it could well be of the same age as Loose Howe on the opposite side of Rosedale, which is certainly mid Bronze Age, about 12,000 to 14,000 BC. The hollow on top was used for cockfighting in the 19th century or earlier.

Fred Johnson, landlord of the inn with his father from 1915 to 1939, said it had a Roman sign, and that they hung a bunch of green leaves or a Bush outside after brewing. This was certainly a very old custom. Later owners had a sign by the road stating it dated back to 1553. I have not found any evidence this, though there is a reference in Dugdale stating that Edward III gave 1 toft and 10 acres of land in the moor of Blakeshow in Farndale to the crutched Friars for the building of an oratory, with other edifices for habitation, AD 1348. But Whittaker thinks this could be on the site at the present Farndale Church, at the foot of Blakey Gill in Farndale.

The Ridge Road now rises to 1,400 feet at Young Ralph's Cross, NZ 678023, Crucem Radulphi, AD 1200, probably from the Old Norse ‘Ralpa’, meaning a heap of stones. The cross may be much more recent than its counterpart, Old Ralph, which stands 300 yards to the West at NZ 676020, at just over 1,400 feet, the highest point on the Ridge.

The road which winds southeast to Rosedale from Ralph’s Cross via White Cross and Loose Howe is mentioned as a road by 1233 in the Guisborough Charter.

(Old Roads and Pannierways in North East Yorkshire, Raymond H Hayes MBE, FSA, 1988, page 11 to 15, 36).

Old Ralph’s Cross (NZ 676020) is a cross with a shaft in socket, just under 2 metres high. Young Ralph’s Cross (NZ 677022) was probably erected in the eighteenth century.

Monkegate

In the fourteenth century, the track up to Rudland Ridge from Monket House was a route known as Monckgate, which linked Farndale with Bransdale. Monket suggests a link with monks, but in the absence of monastic associations with the dale it is more likely to derive from Mened-cet fromn the Welsh Mynydd-coed meaning forest hill.

The road up Monket Bank links the two dales and was used as a church way. It starts opposite Monket House (SC 661972), called Munkgate in the 14th century, climbing steeply up a deep hollow-way from 675 feet to 1,212 feet up the side of the shale slips of the Monket House crags, up Penny Hill. Always rough, by 1985 it was very deeply rutted, some 6 to 14 inches deep in parts. Only tractors could use it, and even they had to detour onto the moor to avoid the worst places. It crosses Ousegill Head and the Rudland Rigg track southwards from Cockan Cross, marked by piles of stones. On the east side of Bransdale the track divides. A deep hollow-way goes straight down to Smout House, but the main track descended more gradually, northwest, by some intakes to Cow Sike House where it joined the Bransdale East Road to Cockan Kirk.

This was the route used by bearers carrying the corpse of one of the Greystokes of Shotten Hill, Farndale, to Cockan Kirk in Bransdale, described to the writer by an old lady living in Scarborough, who attended the funeral in the 1870s. She also remembered an Aconley of Frost Hall carried over the rigg by a higher route that came over below Cockan Cross. These are genuine corpse roads, like that over Danby Rigg described by Canon Atkinson.

(Old Roads and Pannierways in North East Yorkshire, Raymond H Hayes MBE, FSA, 1988, page 47).

Wade’s Causeway

Not until Roman times was a well paved Causeway constructed: Wade's Causeway, part of which remain between Stape and Lease Rigg. (Old Roads and Pannierways in North East Yorkshire, Raymond H Hayes MBE, FSA, 1988, page 7).

Following the ridgeway on the western edge of the Yorkshire Wolds to Malton a large camp was set up at Orchard Field, Malton, followed by an 8 acre walled fort in the time of Trajan (98 to 117 AD). About this time a military road was laid down northwards over the Vale of Pickering, by a series of low holmes in the marshes, to Cawthorn, 4 miles northwest of Pickering, where a series of four exercise camps were built during two separate occupations. The road was continued over wild and desolate moorland to Wheeldale and Lease Rigg above Grosmont, where another camp was made. From here it crossed the Esk to a point not yet determined on the coast, possibly Sandsend near Whitby, where there was a landing beach,. This is the only authentic Roman road yet identified north of the Vale of Pickering, where a portion of it, excavated by the Ministry of Works, can be seen north of Stape. (A History of Helmsley Rievaulx and District, editor, J McDonnell, 1963, page 47).

Raymond Hayes described Wade’s causeway as the only certain Roman Road in North East Yorkshire. It was taken by a report by Raymond Hayes and J G Rutter in 1964 to run from Amotherby (west of Malton) to the Roman camp at Cawthorn across the moors to Lease Rigg (which descends from the moors to Grosmont) (Wade’s Causeway, RH Hayes and JG Rutter, Scarborough and District Archaeological Society Research Report No. 4, 1964, page 7). It most likely connected York via Malton with the fourth century coastal signal stations around Whitby. It crossed the Vale of Pickering through Great Barugh and Wrelton and climbed towards Cawthorn. There is a field at Cawthorn called Little Street Close, and the Saxon word street often marks the existence of a Roman road.

Wade’s causeway and Roman sites and finds in its neighbourhood

The conclusion on Wade’s causeway was that it could be an early military road of AD 80 to 120 when it fell into disuse.

(Old Roads and Pannierways in North East Yorkshire, Raymond H Hayes MBE, FSA, 1988, page 29 to 30).

Roman Road at Goathland (from Raymond Hayes’ 1988 book)

It is now believed that the route may have had neolithic origins. Legend suggested that it was constructed by a Germanic mythical figure, Wade.

The linear monument on Wheeldale Moor is first recorded as ‘Wade’s Causeway – a Roman Way’ on a map of 1720. It then features in most antiquarian accounts of the area as part of a Roman road, traced for various distances along a route from Amotherby, near Malton, in the south towards the coast north of Whitby, a distance of some 33 to 35 miles. More recent work, however, has suggested that it could be medieval, or that it might not be a road at all, but a much modified Neolithic or early Bronze Age boundary feature.

Various theories have been put forward to explain the purpose of this road. The key suggested associations are the Roman military complex at Cawthorn Camps on the south side of the moors, the Roman fort at Malton, the Roman fort on Lease Rigg between the valleys of the rivers Esk and Murk Esk, a putative early Roman fort near or north of Whitby, and the late 4th-century ‘signal stations’ on the Yorkshire coast.

The name Wade’s Causeway, as the site is also known, derives from a local legend that the ‘road’ linked the home of a giant called Wade who lived at Mulgrave Castle with that of his wife, Bel, who lived at Pickering Castle.

(History of Wheeldale Roman Road, English Heritage).

There is now evidence that before the Roman occupation there was a sizeable Iron Age population in the North Yorkshire Moors in and to the north of the Esk Valley and extending south east to Levisham Moor. This was probably a sept or clan of the Brigantes, and the building of a fort at Eston Nab in the Iron Age (palisade c 500 BC and later rampart and ditch) seems to suggest some turbulence within the tribe.

At all events, Roman policy seems to have been one of pacification. Hayes and Rutter (Wade’s Causeway, RH Hayes and JG Rutter, Scarborough and District Archaeological Society Research Report No. 4, 1964, page 89) have shown that the Ninth Legion at Malton carried this out by constructing the military road from Malton to Lease Rigg near Grosmont starting the work early in the occupation about AD 80. In this one move they took command of the Lower Esk, thereby effectively seizing strategic control of the territory of the presumed Brigantian clan.

That this policy, coupled with economic advancements, was successful in pacifying the area is indicated by the virtual abandonment of the road after a single generation, in about AD 120, and by the apparent abandonment of the Eston fort in Roman times. The effect of this pacification is clearly to be seen in the upland farms at Crag Bank and Pale End. The mixed farming settlements originated in pre-Roman times but there was no ‘harrying of the north’ by the Romans, and life continued uninterrupted during their occupation. This continuity can be seen on other Iron Age/Romano-British settlements in Yorkshire.

(Romano British Settlements at Crag Bank and Lounsdale, near Kildale, RS Close, RH Hayes and DA Spratt, Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, Volume 47, 1975, page 61).

The Itinerary of Antoninus Augustus lists fifteen routes in Britain among its empire-wide network of 225 roads (G Parthey and M. Pinder (editors), Itinerarium Antonini Augusti et Hierosolymitanum, Berlin, 1848). It is likely that the main route from Rome to Egypt represented an imperial progress made by the young emperor Caracalla in A. D. 214/15, three years after he had succeeded his father, Septimius Severus, who had died at Eburacum (York). The Itinerary (road-book) takes its name from Caracalla's official adoptive, name, Antoninus. The document was later brought up-to-date, but only in parts, towards the end of the third century, in the time of the emperor Diocletian (A.D. 284-305).

Route I (conventionally so labelled in Britain) ran ' from the frontier, from the waif, as it claims, to a place called Praetorium/Pratorium, praetor's headquarters', 'commander's centre'. This name is found several times in the continental part of the Itinerary, and is a description of function rather than a place-name. The one in Britain is normally located at the Roman military base and town at Brough-on-Humber. The road passed through eight intermediate stations, in most cases also towns, in the English counties, Northumberland, Durham and Yorkshire. These towns are named, and distances are given in Roman numerals between them, as well as an overall total given at the beginning of the route. The road's general direction is not in doubt; it is down the Rede Valley to the Tyne, then south across the interfluves of Tyne, Wear and Tees, before following the Swale and Ure to York and then swinging eastward to the Yorkshire Derwent and, probably, south again across the Wolds to the Humber.

The situation east and south of Eburacum is rather different. There are only three stations, but the location of each is disputed. Derventio is represented by the Iter as seven miles (VII) from Eburacum, Delgouicia as 1 3 miles (XIII) from Derventio, and Praetono as 25 from Delgouicia (XXV). The most common way of placing them on the map has been to locate Derventio at Malton (on the River Derwent and a major Roman site, certainly a road-hub), Delgouicia as either at Millington or Wetwang (near or on one or other Roman road from Malton to the Humber) and Praetorio (Brough, an important Roman naval-station and township on the Humber).

(Route 1 in Roman Britian: From the frontier to the Humber, JGF Hind, Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, Volume 79, 2007, page 55).

There is a detailed description of Wade’s Causeway in the Roads of Roman Britain Gazetteer for Roman Road Margary Number 81b, Amotherby to Whitby, Wade’s Causeway.

Hambleton Street

Of all the ancient trackways running roughly north and south across the moors, the most notable and for long the dominant road across the area was Hambleton Street. It was referred to as a regalis via in the Rievaulx Cartulary. It was further to the west and ran from the Tees at Yarm, across the moor top at Scarth Nick, to Osmotherley and then across the western escarpment of the Hambleton Hills to Boltby Bank and Sutton Bank. There it forked with a branch to York via Coxwold and Crayke and another older branch to Malton via Hovingham. This was a Bronze Age route and the Bishops of Durham used it to travel to York in medieval times. (A History of Helmsley Rievaulx and District, editor, J McDonnell, 1963, page 69 to 70).

You are obliged to cross the moors they call Black Hambleton, over which the road runs in narrow hollows that admit a south country chaise (Cart) with some difficulty, that I reckon this part of the journey made a hazard of my neck. The going down into Cleveland is beyond all description, terrible, you go through such steep, rough, narrow, rock precipices, that I would sincerely advise you to go a hundred miles to escape it. (Rural Economy of Yorkshire, Arthur Young, 1771).

Linkfoot Lane

Linkfoot Lane, leaving Helmsley via Bondgate and heading through Beadlam and Kirkdale for Kirkbymoorside, still marks the general route followed in medieval times (and indeed earlier; note the string of Saxon ‘tons’) by the road eastwards from Helmsley towards Pickering and the coast. (A History of Helmsley Rievaulx and District, editor, J McDonnell, 1963, page 70).

Bibliography

Old Roads and Pannierways in North East Yorkshire, Raymond H Hayes MBE, FSA, 1988. The British Library has a copy (YA.2000.b.3130).

Life in Ryedale in the 14^th century, J H Rushton, Ryedale Historian, Volume 8, 1976, page 19.

The Medieval Foundation of England, 1967, Arthur Bryant, page 184

Cartulary of Rievaulx, Edited by J C Atkinson, 1889, page 19.

Family, Faith and Fortification: Yorkshire 1066-1250, Sarah Speight, 1993 page 70.

History of Wheeldale Roman Road, English Heritage.

Wade’s Causeway, RH Hayes and JG Rutter, Scarborough and District Archaeological Society Research Report No. 4, 1964, page 7.

Journeys from Jarrow, Richard Morris, 2004 Jarrow Lecture.