Malton is the only town on the Derwent, and it is made up of three separate places—Old Malton, a picturesque village; New Malton, a pleasant and oldfashioned town; and Norton, a curiously extensive suburb. The last has a Norman font in its modern church, and there its attractions begin and end. New Malton has a fortunate position on a slope well above the lush grass by the river, and in this way arranges the backs of its houses with unconscious charm. The two churches, although both containing Norman pillars and arches, have been so extensively rebuilt that their antiquarian interest is slight.
On account of its undoubted signs of Roman occupation in the form of two rectangular camps, and its situation at the meeting-place of some three or four Roman roads, New Malton has been with great probability identified with the Delgovitia of the Antonine Itinerary.
Old Malton is a cheerful and well-kept village, with antique cottages here and there, roofed with mossy thatch. It makes a pretty picture as you come along the level road from Pickering, with a group of trees on the left and the tower of the Priory Church appearing sedately above the humble roofs. A Gilbertine monastery was founded here about the middle of the twelfth century, during the lifetime of St. Gilbert of Sempringham in Lincolnshire, who during the last year of his long life sent a letter to the Canons of Malton, addressing them as 'My dear sons.' Little remains of Malton Priory with the exception of the church, built at the very beginning of the Early English period. Of the two western towers, the southern one only survives, and both aisles, two bays of the nave, and everything else to the east has gone. The abbreviated nave now serves as a parish church.
Between Malton and the Vale of York there lies that stretch of hilly country we saw from the edge of the Wolds, for some time past known as the Howardian Hills, from Castle Howard which stands in their midst. The many interests that this singularly remote neighbourhood contains can be realized by making such a peregrination as we made through the Wolds.
There is no need to avoid the main road south of Malton. It has a park-like appearance, with its large trees and well-kept grass on each side, and the glimpses of the wooded valley of the Derwent on the left are most beautiful. On the right we look across the nearer grasslands into the great park of Castle Howard, and catch glimpses between the distant masses of trees of Lord Carlisle's stately home. The old castle of the Howards having been burnt down, Vanbrugh, the greatest architect of early Georgian times, designed the enormous building now standing. In 1772 Horace Walpole compressed the glories of the place into a few sentences. '... I can say with exact truth,' he writes to George Selwyn,' that I never was so agreeably astonished in my days as with the first vision of the whole place. I had heard of Vanburgh, and how Sir Thomas Robinson and he stood spitting and swearing at one another; nay, I had heard of glorious woods, and Lord Strafford alone had told me that I should see one of the finest places in Yorkshire; but nobody ... had informed me that should at one view see a palace, a town, a fortified city; temples on high places, woods worthy of being each metropolis of the Druids, vales connected to hills by other woods, the noblest lawn in the world fenced by half the horizon, and a mausoleum that would tempt one to be buried alive; in short, I have seen gigantic places before, but never a sublime one.'
The style is that of the Corinthian renaissance, and Walpole's description applies as much to-day as when he wrote. The pictures include some of the masterpieces of Reynolds, Lely, Vandyck, Rubens, Tintoretto, Canaletto, Giovanni Bellini Domenichino and Annibale Caracci.
Two or three miles to the south, the road finds itself close to the deep valley of the Derwent. A short turning embowered with tall trees whose dense foliage only allows a soft green light to filter through, goes steeply down to the river. We cross the deep and placid river by a stone bridge, and come to the Priory gateway. It is a stately ruin partially mantled with ivy, and it preserves in a most remarkable fashion the detail of its outward face.
The mossy steps of the cross just outside the gateway are, according to a tradition in one of the Cottonian manuscripts, associated with the event which led to the founding of the Abbey by Walter Espec, lord of Helmsley. He had, we are told, an only son, also named Walter, who was fond of riding with exceeding swiftness.
One day when galloping at a great pace his horse stumbled near a small stone, and young Espec was brought violently to the ground, breaking his neck and leaving his father childless. The grief-stricken parent is said to have found consolation in the founding of three abbeys, one of them being at Kirkham, where the fatal accident took place.
Of the church and conventual buildings only a few fragments remain to tell us that this secluded spot by the Derwent must have possessed one of the most stately monasteries in Yorkshire. One tall lancet is all that has been left of the church; and of the other buildings a few walls, a beautiful Decorated lavatory, and a Norman doorway alone survive.