THE SCENIC village of Grosmont, to the west of Whitby, has an exotic name.

Clearly French – and pronounced as such Growmont – this was the creation of some continental incomers to England in the early 13th century.

Now Grosmont is, once we get past the distraction of those exotic origins, straightforward, it means simply ‘Big Hill’ and, in fact, was also called Grandmont.

Grand and gros are both, of course, words for ‘large’ in French.

And the name is a very reasonable one given the extremely steep slopes that surround the village. The OS map has tell-tale double arrow signs on all the roads here and the gearsticks of locals regularly give out.

But there is rather more to Grosmont than meets the eye, for Grosmont or Grandmont was not only a foreign name. It was, in fact, a wholesale import, brought by French-speaking monks to this corner of the country from Limoges in central France and the famous monastery of Grandmont.

What we have then is the same phenomenon seen when, in the 18th century, settlers from the north-east set out and named a corner of, say, Canada ‘Whitby’ or a village in Australia ‘Darlington’.

The nostalgic monks who came to found our Big Hill were understandably impressed by the steep paths in and out of the their new Yorkshire base: a priory was built in the area in 1200 though its remain are no longer to be seen.

And these cassocked newcomers remembered their home back in the hills of Limoges Frenchifying a part of England forever.