Looking to the north-east we see Skelton, backed by the Upleatham woods. Though but a speck in the landscape, it has contributed more to history than places which boast acres of houses. “From this little nook of Cleveland,” says the local historian, “sprang mighty monarchs, queens, high-chancellors, archbishops, earls, barons, ambassadors, and knights, and, above all, one brilliant and immortal name—Robert Bruce.” We hear of a Robert de Brus, second of the name, trying to dissuade David of Scotland from awaiting the attack of the English army near Northallerton: but the king chose to fight, and lost, as we have already read, the Battle of the Standard. And the sixth baron, Peter de Brus, was one of the resolute band who made his mark at Runnymede, and helped to wrest the right of Liberty from a royal craven.
Then taking a stride to later years, we find the author of Crazy Tales, John Hall Stephenson, the occupant of Skelton Castle, an esquire hospitable and eccentric, the Eugenius of Sterne, who was his willing guest:
“In this retreat, whilom so sweet,
Once Tristram and his cousin dwelt.”
There it was that Sterne bribed a boy to tie the weathercock with its point to the west, hoping thereby to lure the host from his chamber; for Eugenius would never leave his bed while the wind blew from the east, even though good company longed for his presence.
In one of his poems the “crazy” author describes the hill country such as we see it stretching away beyond Cook’s monument:
“Where the beholder stands confounded
At such a scene of mountains bleak;
Where nothing goes
Except some solitary pewit,
And carrion crows,
That seem sincerely to rue it:
Where nothing grows,
So keen it blows,
Save here and there a graceless fir,
From Scotland with its kindred fled,
That moves its arms and makes a stir,
And tosses its fantastic head.”
On Eston Nab, that bold hill between us and the Tees, is an ancient camp, and graves supposed to be two thousand years old. Kildale, in the opposite direction, had once a diabolical notoriety; for there the devil played many a prank, and drank the church-well dry, so that the priest could get no holy water. Ingleby Manor, an antique Tudor house, belonged to the Foulis family, who gave a noteworthy captain to the army of the Parliament. And other historic names—the D’Arcys, Eures, Percys, and Baliols—all had estates overlooked by Rosebury. Wilton Castle, not far from the foot of Eston Nab, was built by Sir John Lowther, about fifty years ago, on the site of a fortress once held by the Bulmers.
Now to return for a moment to the hill itself: the topmost rocks are of the same formation as those we saw stretching into the sea at Redcar, uptilted more than a thousand feet in a distance of ten miles. And lower down, as if to exemplify the geology of the North Riding in one spot, a thick stratum of alum-rock is found, with ironstone, limestone, jet and coal, and numerous fossil shells. And it illustrates meteorological phenomena, for, from time immemorial, weatherwise folk have said,
“When Rosebury Topping wears a cap,
Let Cleveland then beware a clap.”
More than an hour slipped away while I lounged and loitered, making the round of the summit again and again, till it seemed that the landscape had become familiar to me. Then the solitude was broken by the arrival of strangers, who came scrambling up the hill, encouraging one another, with cheerful voices. They gained the rocks at last, panting; two families from Middlesborough, husbands, wives, boys and girls, and a baby, with plenty to eat and drink in their baskets, come from the murky town to pass the Sunday on the breezy hill-top. How they enjoyed the pure air and the wide prospect; and how they wondered to find room for a camp-meeting on a summit which, from their homes, looked as if it were only a blunt point! They told me that a trip to Rosebury Topping was an especial recreation for the people of Middlesborough—a town which, by the way, is built on a swampy site, where the only redeeming feature is ready access to a navigable river. I remember what it was before the houses were built. A drearier spot could not be imagined: one of those places which, as Punch says, “you want never to hear of, and hope never to see.”