The history of Sutton Bank - always a popular place to be

My wife and I often go for invigorating walks in that area. In addition to that major road, there are several minor routes that lead in various directions from the bank top. There are footpaths too with the Cleveland Way providing a captivating vista for those who make use of it.

The National Park Centre at the summit of Sutton Bank provides a wonderful means of learning more about this spectacular place and it also provides welcoming rest and refreshment. For all kinds of reasons, therefore, Sutton Bank Top is a busy place. But, it could be argued, it has always been so.

In the past, one of the causes of hectic activity was the drovers' road that passed this way. It headed from Scotland, entering the North York Moors near Swainby and then running almost due south as it crossed Black Hambleton. In some places, it skirted the edge of the escarpment to the north of Sutton Bank, roughly along the route of the Cleveland Way, before dividing close to where the Hambleton Inn now stands. It is distinctly possible this road also made use of one that had existed many centuries earlier.

Although cattle droving had continued since medieval times, it reached its peak during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The precise age of that route from Swainby to Sutton Bank Top is uncertain with some authorities believing it is prehistoric. Evidence of Bronze Age dwellers has been found along the way, and an Iron Age fort was discovered near Boltby.

It is highly probable the Romans used it, and that the Saxons and Norsemen also followed this ancient route. There is a tradition that William the Conqueror followed this road in 1069 after completing his Harrying of the North. The tale suggests he marched from Teesside to York in a terrible snowstorm, during which he got lost and found himself and his army in the Cleveland Hills, somewhere above Bilsdale. The story is that his loud cursing in the snowstorm led to a saying that is still used in Bilsdale, ie 'He cusses like Billy Norman.'

Others who have used this route to the south include the faithful who looked after St Cuthbert's body as it was carted around the north of England. Here, his remains would be en route to Crayke. Edward II, who fled when his army was defeated by the Scots at Scots Corner near Sutton Bank Top, is also said to have escaped along this way in 1322.

It was widely used in the Middle Ages by foot travellers and horsemen who traded with the monasteries and abbeys in that region. With all this activity, it is not surprising that the ancient road has survived through the centuries, although it was never developed into a major road.

Despite all its other uses, it was the traffic in cattle that established it and also made it known as a major drovers' road. Animals were driven in thousands in processions that were sometimes up to two miles long. They required care, attention, rest and food along the route. Teams of drovers would be aided by dogs, and along the way men and animals would require the services of wayside craftsmen such as farriers and suppliers of food. Local inns did a brisk trade and so the teams of drovers were always welcome. They brought much-needed money and prosperity to the area.

The inns frequented by the travellers became known as drovers' inns. There were four along the 15 miles stretch across the North York Moors, three of which survive to this day. At the northern end was the famous Chequers Inn near Osmotherley and above Kepwick there was Limekiln House. It catered for both lime workers and drovers, but is now a ruin, while at the southern end near Sutton Bank were Dialstone Inn, now a farm, and the Hambleton Inn which continues as a busy hostelry.

It was near the Hambleton Inn that one branch continued to York and beyond, even reaching as far as the Midlands and eventually London, while the other led across the moors into Ryedale and Malton by a route that is now a surfaced road.

Things began to change after 1663 when the route from York to Coxwold became a turnpike road as far as Oldstead. Travellers tried to avoid paying the turnpike fees along that stretch, but the ancient route across the Hambleton Hills did not attract that kind of modernisation.

It remained an unmade and rough track, and as the coaching era became popular, so the route became used more sparingly - except by processions of cattle. However, long distance walks by cattle slipped into history with the changing transport methods. Ships and railways were able to carry them much more speedily over great distances, and this was followed by new developments such as canning and refrigeration. It was inevitable that those long distance treks would become unnecessary.

Today, sections of that old track continue to serve as footpaths and in some cases surfaced roads have replaced sections of it. Surprisingly, even within living memory, parts of the old route were used to drive animals from Ryedale to Swainby for sheep sales.

In an earlier column (D & S Times, October 12), I referred to correspondence from a Richmond reader who had witnessed the clever antics of a crow in his garden. The bird would take a crust of bread and then dunk it in the bird bath, just as some humans dip tough biscuits into their coffee.

Shortly afterwards, I was pleased to read an item in the Yorkshire Post that reported an experiment with crows. Researchers had fitted tiny video cameras beneath the tail feathers of 18 crows on islands in the south Pacific. The angle of the cameras allowed the lenses to film between the birds' legs and so observe their behaviour when feeding or searching for food.

What amazed the researchers was that these birds proved capable of some surprising abilities, including the making of small tools to enable them to reach food. Some would bend pieces of wire to make hooks to extract food from hollow tubes, while others would use a short stick to help them retrieve a longer one needed for access to food. One bird was seen using three different tools for probing the ground in its search for tit-bits, a technique never previously known.

Clever though crows might be, some of us still worry when we see one perched on a house roof - it is said to herald the death of an occupant but I doubt if crows could ever be clever enough to see into the future.

I have been reminded of a tragedy that occurred at Morton-on-Swale in 1759. A young housemaid called Mary Ward had witnessed the illegal activities of her master and unwittingly passed the information to someone else. Her master was furious and so became determined to silence the girl by having her murdered.

From her home in Romanby, an accomplice on horseback lured her away on the pretext her mother was very ill and dying. Mary went off with the horseman. He took her to the riverside at Morton-on-Swale and she was never again seen alive. I believe she was either drowned in the Swale or murdered nearby with her body being cast into the river.

For many years afterwards, it was said that Morton bridge across the Swale was haunted by the ghost of a young woman.