Slingsby and Slingsby Castle

SLINGSBY AND SLINGSBY CASTLE
By Arthur St. Clair Brooke, M. A.

CONTENTS

Introduction
The Making of Slingsby, and Slingsby in Domesday
Some Lords of Slingsby
The Wyvilles
The Castle
The Church and Rectors
Some Changes and Survivals
Appendices

Chapter 1 Excerpt

SLINGSBY is one of a number of villages situated along the southern edge of the vale of Pickering, in the north-riding of Yorkshire and the wapentake of Ryedale. Pickering vale opens on the east towards the sea, and is encircled in other directions by three ranges of hills: (1) The Tabular hills on the north; (2) the Hambleton hills on the west; (3) the Howardian hills on the south. The Tabular hills have their name from their nearly table-like summits. They extend from the coast at Scarboro' westward to Black Hambleton (1309 feet), a tract of country which Arthur Young speaks of as "not having the epithet black given to it for nothing, for it is a continual range of black moors." At this point the high ground curves round to the south, forming the lofty plateau of the Hambleton hills?a name somewhat fancifully derived by Eugene Aram in his projected lexicon from "hemel" and "don," signifying the "heavenly mountain"; and given, he adds, to these hills, "not from their elevation, but from their figure to the eye, which is that of half a globe with the convexity upwards." The Howardian hills, the least elevated of the three ranges, extend from Gilling to Malton, and are called after the family of Howard, whose seat is in their neighbourhood. They seem to have been without a name until Marshall in his "Rural Economy of Yorkshire," written in 1796, so christened them (vol. i p. 12).

A spur of the Hambleton range, called Cauklass Bank, runs into the western portion of the vale of Pickering, dividing it in this part into Ryedale, on the north, called after the river Rye; and Mowbray vale on the south, called after the famous house of Mowbray. The vale of Mowbray, however, is not confined to this part of the vale of Pickering, but extends through the gap, which at Gilling and Coxwold divides the Hambleton from the Howardian hills into the north-eastern portion of the vale of York, as far north as the border of Cleveland; for the Mowbrays had possessions in all this region, their chief seat being at Tresch (i.e. Thirsk), where they had a castle.

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