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Tag: english heritage

The Rudston Monolith Part II

This article is the second part of three on the Rudston monolith in the East Riding of Yorkshire. You can read Part I here…

I have transcribed the informative leaflet by W. W. Gatenby, which I acquired some years ago during a visit to the monolith and the Church of All Saints at Rudston in North Yorkshire. I’ll transcribe the leaflet exactly as is, which means that some of the phrasing and language reads quite dated, but I will look to re-paragraph some of it for ease of reading.

Rudston Monolith at night

Photo Credit: Chris Collyer at stone-circles.org.uk. Used with permission.

Returning to our thoughts on the Rudston monolith, we can imagine this being loaded on some very well dried beech trees with maximum buoyancy, and taken down either by the River Derwent or the River Rye to the Vale of Pickering, much of which was still under a very considerable depth of water at some seasons of the year, and brought to the foot of the Woldsat some place like Muston. Then the hard work really began to get it as far as Rudston. jon rosling

It is much less likely that they would attempt the sea journey from the River Esk down the coast. The tide rips at Flamborough Head would cause an extreme hazard to the people attempting to move by hand paddles a 50 feet raft of that weight.

Furthermore, any attempt to take it up the Gypsey Race, which could be dammed in sections, would be foiled because with the length of at least 50 feet, the torturous bends of some parts of the Race would present an impassable barrier.

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Sir John Reresby (1634-1689), the South Yorkshire Scrapper!

Nave and chancel featuring the Sir John Reresby family monuments at St. Leonard's, Thrybergh. Photo by John RoslingThis January, I finally managed to get inside St Leonard’s Church at Thrybergh to take some photographs of the inside of the building and of some of the quite grand memorials and monuments that can be found in there. Most of these memorials are linked with the names of families from the local area throughout the long history of the place and include the Fullertons and Reresbys. jon rosling

The Reresby family came by the estate at Thrybergh in 1316 when it passed from it’s previous owners, the Normanvilles. They – the Reresby’s – held it in an unbroken line for around the next four hundred years, with Sir John Reresby (1611 – 1646) becoming the first Baronet of Thribergh in 16421.

However, it’s not that Sir John Reresby that this blog piece concerns itself but his son, who became the second Baronet in 1634 on his father’s death. Continue reading

Whitby Abbey: The Illuminated Abbey

 

 
Halloween is always an atmospheric time of year – glowing pumpkins, roasted chestnuts, Yorkshire parkin and faces painted in a myriad of ghoulish disguises. But this year was made all the more so by spending Samhain in the Gothic surroundings of Whitby and it’s wonderful illuminated abbey ruins. jon rosling

English Heritage‘s Illuminated Abbey event in 2019 was a week of activities at the abbey that sits in a prominent position on the headland overlooking Whitby’s ancient harbour. The abbey itself is, of course, a ruin – years of neglect after the violence of it’s dissolution in 1540 left it a shell. The bracing wind, rain and salt spray  from the North Sea have also taken their toll on the stonework and an attack by German battle-cruisers in December 1914 did further severe damage.

Wide angle photograph of Whitby Church of St Mary's and Harbour. Photo by John Rosling

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The Legend of St Leonard of Reresby Pt II

Correggio's image of Saint LeonardMy earlier blog posting considered the legend of a local saint, Saint Leonard of Reresby, one about which I had never come across until I researched the medieval stone cross at St Leonard’s Church in nearby Thrybergh. jon rosling

It’s unsurprising that I’ve never come across the legend before as it seems the first time anyone has put any coherent research together is John Doxey’s website on the local area.

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