[1] Morris, J.E.: "The North Riding of Yorkshire," p. 33.
[2] Illustrated, facing p. 209, "Associated Architectural Societies' Reports," vol. xii. 1873.
Hinderwell mentions a curious legend in connection with the cave in a small conical hill at Ebberston, that has since been destroyed. The country people called it Ilfrid's Hole, the tradition being that a Saxon king of that name took shelter there when wounded after a battle. An inscription that was formerly placed above the cave said: "Alfrid, King of Northumberland, was wounded in a bloody battle near this place, and was removed to Little Driffield, where he lies buried; hard by his entrenchments may be seen." The roughly built stone hut with a domed roof that now crowns the hill is within twenty yards of the site of the cave, and was built by Sir Charles Hotham in 1790 to preserve the memory of this legendary king. In the period that lay between the conversion of Northumbria to Christianity in 627, and the ravages of Dane and Northman in the ninth and tenth centuries, we know by the traces that survive that the Saxons built a church in each of their villages, and that they placed beautifully sculptured crosses above the graves of their dead. The churches were small and quite simple in plan, generally consisting of a nave and chancel, with perhaps a tower at the west end. Owing to the importance of Pickering the Saxon church may have been a little in advance of the rest, and its tower may have been ornamented as much as that of Earl's Barton, but we are entering the dangerous realms of conjecture, and must be reconciled to that one fragment of a pre-Norman cross that is now carefully preserved in the south aisle of the present building.
[CHAPTER VII]
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 flourishing province were cut off, by fire, slaughter, and devastation; the ground for more than sixty miles, totally uncultivated and unproductive, remains bare to the present day." This is believed to have been written about 1135, and would give us grounds for believing that the desolation continued for over sixty years. A vivid light is thrown on the destruction wrought at Pickering by the record in the Domesday Book, which is as follows:--
"In Picheringa there are to be taxed thirty-seven carucates of land, which twenty ploughs may till. Morcar held this for one manor, with its berewicks Bartune (Barton), Neuuctune (Newton), Blandebi (Blandsby) and Estorp (Easthorp). It is now the king's. There is therein one plough and twenty villanes with six ploughs; meadow half a mile long and as much broad: but all the wood which belongs to the manor is sixteen miles long and four broad. This manor in the time of King Edward was valued at fourscore and eight pounds; now at twenty shillings and four-pence."[1]