Yorkshire Vales and Wolds

by Gordon Home

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.