The restoration in 1878-79 included the very difficult work of renewing the Norman foundations of the tower, which were quite unable to continue to support the crushing weight of the spire. Sir Gilbert Scott, who inspected the tower and was pointed out several of the results of the unequal strains on the fabric, solemnly warned those concerned not to be stingy with cement if they wished to save the tower. The advice was taken, and after the removal of the crushed and rotten stones and many other repairs the tower and spire were left in a state of greatly increased security. The framework supporting the bells dated from about 1450, and as there were no louvres to the windows for a long time, rain and snow must have been blown in upon the woodwork, for it was found to be entirely rotten, and it was astonishing that the timbers had not given way under the great weight of the bells.
It is an old custom that is still preserved to ring the biggest, or the "pancake" bell, as it is often called, at eleven in the morning on Shrove Tuesday. At that welcome sound the children are allowed to leave school for the day, the shops are closed, and a general holiday is observed in the town. The work bell is rung every morning from 5.55 to 6.0, and from 6.0 to 6.5 every evening from March to November, and the bells are rung backwards to call out the fire brigade. The curious little fire-engine upon which the town used to rely is still preserved in a shed in Willowgate. It is one of those primitive little contrivances standing on very small solid wheels, suggesting those of a child's toy horse.
Until the restoration of the church the pulpit was of the two-decker type, the clerk's desk being under the pulpit, with the reading-desk at the side. The inlaid sounding-board which was taken out of the church at the restoration is now preserved in the vicarage. It was in these days, namely about thirty years ago, that the sexton and his deputy used to visit the public-houses during church time in order to fetch out those who were wasting the precious hours. At Christmas time the waits still enliven the early hours with their welcomes to each individual member of every family. The two men, whose names are Beavers and Stockdale, carry a concertina and greet the household after this well-known fashion, "Drawing to ----- o'clock and a fine frosty morning. Good morrow morning, Mr -----. Good morrow morning, Mrs -----," and so through the entire family. This process commences a week before Christmas and is continued until a week afterwards. In the villages the custom of "lucky birds" still survives. The boy who first reaches any house on Christmas morning is called a "lucky bird," and unless great misfortune is courted some small coin must be given to that boy. On New Year's Day the same process applies to girls, but they have no particular designation. Badger-baiting in the castle is still remembered, but at the present time lawn-tennis is the only game that is played there. This brings one to the everyday facts of Pickering life, which may sound almost too prosaic for any record, but taken in contrast with the conditions of life that have gone before they are the most recent page of that history which continues to be made day by day in the town.
The Pickeronian can no longer call himself remote in the sense of communication with the rest of the world, for the North-Eastern Railway takes him to York in little more than an hour, and from that great station he can choose his route to London and other centres by the Great Northern, the Great Central, or by the Midland Railway, and he can return from King's Cross to Pickering in about five hours. But this ease of communication seems to have made less impression upon the manners and customs of the town and neighbourhood than might have been imagined. It may perhaps show itself in the more rapid importation from London of a popular street tune or in the fashions of dress among the women-kind, but there are still great differences in the ways of living of the country folk and in the relations of squire and peasant.
Superstitions still linger among the moorland folk, and the custom of placing a plate of salt upon the breast of one who is dying is still continued here and there in a covert fashion. Clocks are still stopped, fires raked out, and looking-glasses turned to the wall at the moment of death, but such acts of deference to the world of fancy are naturally only seen by those who have intimate experience of the cottage life of these parts, and the casual visitor sees no traces of them.
The town at one time had a newspaper of its own. It was known as the Pickering Mercury, and was started in the summer of 1857; but it perhaps found Scarborough competition too much for it, for now it is almost forgotten, and an evening paper produced in the big watering-place is shouted round the streets of the town every night.
The changes that the present century may witness will possibly work greater transformations than any that have gone before, and not many years hence this book will no doubt be described as belonging to the rough and ready, almost primitive times of the early part of the twentieth century. The historian of a hundred years hence will sigh for the complete picture of daily life at Pickering at the present day, which we could so easily give, while he at that very moment may be failing to record the scenes of his own time that are to him so wofully commonplace.