The Evolution of an English Town | Page 4

here and
there by whitewash, and presents strong contrasts of colour against the
green meadows and the masses of trees that crown the hill where the
castle stands. The ruins, now battered and ivy-mantled, are dignified
and picturesque and still sufficiently complete to convey a clear
impression of the former character of the fortress, three of the towers at
angles of the outer walls having still an imposing aspect. The grassy
mounds and shattered walls of the interior would, however, be scarcely
recognisable to the shade of Richard II. if he were ever to visit the
scene of his imprisonment.
Since the time of Henry VIII. when Leland described the castle, whole
towers and all the interior buildings except the chapel have disappeared.
The chief disasters probably happened before the Civil War, although
we are told, by one or two eighteenth century writers, as an instance of

the destruction that was wrought, that after the Parliamentary forces
had occupied the place and "breached the walls," great quantities of
papers and parchments were scattered about Castle-gate, the children
being attracted to pick them up, many of them bearing gilt letters.
During the century which has just closed, more damage was done to the
buildings and in a short time all the wooden floors in the towers
completely disappeared.
Stories are told of the Parliamentary troops being quartered in
Pickering church, and, if this were true, we have every reason to bless
the coats of whitewash which probably hid the wall-paintings from
their view. The series of fifteenth century pictures that now cover both
walls of the nave would have proved so very distasteful to the puritan
soldiery that it is impossible to believe that they could have tolerated
their existence, especially when we find it recorded that the font was
smashed and the large prayer-book torn to pieces at that time.
[Illustration: Rosamund Tower, Pickering Castle.]
Pickering church has a fascination for the antiquary, and does not fail to
impress even the most casual person who wanders into the churchyard
and enters the spacious porch. The solemn massiveness of the Norman
nave, the unusual effect of the coloured paintings above the arches, and
the carved stone effigies of knights whose names are almost forgotten,
carry one away from the familiar impressions of a present-day
Yorkshire town, and almost suggest that one is living in mediæval
times. One can wander, too, on the moors a few miles to the north and
see heather stretching away to the most distant horizon and feel that
there, also, are scenes which have been identically the same for many
centuries. The men of the Neolithic and Bronze Ages may have swept
their eyes over landscapes so similar that they would find the
moorlands quite as they knew them, although they would miss the
dense forests of the valleys and the lower levels.
The cottages in the villages are, many of them, of great age, and most
of them have been the silent witnesses of innumerable superstitious
rites and customs. When one thoroughly realises the degrading
character of the beliefs that so powerfully swayed the lives of the

villagers and moorland-folk of this district, as late as the first twenty
years of the nineteenth century, one can only rejoice that influences
arose sufficiently powerful to destroy them. Along with the revolting
practises, however, it is extremely unfortunate to have to record the
disappearance of many picturesque, and in themselves, entirely
harmless customs. The roots of the great mass of superstitions have
their beginnings so far away from the present time, that to embrace
them all necessitates an exploration of all the centuries that lie between
us and the pre-historic ages, and in the pages that follow, some of these
connections with the past may be discovered.

CHAPTER II
_The Forest and Vale of Pickering in Palæolithic and Pre-Glacial
Times._
The Palæolithic or Old Stone Age preceded and succeeded the Great
Glacial Epochs in the Glacialid.
In that distant period of the history of the human race when man was
still so primitive in his habits that traces of his handiwork are
exceedingly difficult to discover, the forest and Vale of Pickering seem
to have been without human inhabitants. Remains of this Old Stone
Age have been found in many parts of England, but they are all south
of a line drawn from Lincoln to Derbyshire and North Wales. In the
caves at Cresswell Craggs in Derbyshire notable Palæolithic
discoveries were made, but for some reason these savage hordes seem
to have come no further north than that spot. We know, however, that
many animals belonging to the pre-glacial period struggled for their
existence in the neighbourhood of Pickering.
[Illustration: A plan and section of Kirkdale Cave.]
It was during the summer of 1821 that the famous cave at