Tasty sources of local history

The collection reviewed here range in size, style and content. But all carry some interest for those who love to look back.

First up is a small, but fascinating, slice of rural nostalgia. The village of Minskip is two miles south of Boroughbridge and five miles north of Knaresborough. In the preface to Winds Of Change: Memories Of Minskip Village, author Bill Cundall points out that it hosts "no manor house or village green, no monumental features or outstanding landmarks".

Nevertheless, he adds, it is "home for many people of character and unique principles - proud, loyal and caring".

That certainly comes through in his booklet. Bill was born at Holly Farm, Arkendale, before moving to Minskip Grange in 1929, a farm then the property of the West Riding County Council.

Many of the Minskip memories feature the village's main activity: farming. The work was hard, but done with pride.

"Cliff and Arthur Ayres were always the leaders," writes Bill. "During the autumn, Sunday morning ritual was walking over the ploughing. Crooked and uneven furrows would obtain friendly, but not spiteful, comments: 'Thou'll have to do better than that lad, or all t'old hares will have broken legs!'"

Few machines were available, and milking was done by hand - 14 times a week. Churns of milk were delivered by horse and trap each morning to Aldborough Dairy.

"Tradition was that most farms fattened and killed two or three pigs for family use which were cured on slabs or cellar floors," recalls Bill.

"Harry Slater could be seen on most days cycling from village to village. He paid two visits per farm, one for the killing and scraping and then returned the next day for cutting and shaping hams and sides, plus the chaff. After curing, the bacon was dried out by hanging it from hooks on kitchen ceilings. Some of these hooks can still be found today in farmhouse kitchens."

When war came, the villagers had to adjust. "Ration books, coupons and restrictions had to be accepted. Labour was drying up. Taking a pair of carthorses to Grafton to be re-shod took more than half a day.

"John Ellis, of Grange Farm, in his wisdom, bought the first new Fordson tractor with rubber tyres all round.

"Herbert Bell, Herbert Hartley, George Kirby and us were too late and had to have tractors on spade lugs. There was no cab, no power steering and no hydraulics - just crank engine, petrol start."

Winds Of Change: Memories Of Minskip Village is on sale locally, all proceeds to Minskip Church.

Another excellent local history publication is The History of Acaster Selby in the Parish of Stillingfleet 1066-1875 (Ainsty Books, £13). Written by Marjorie J Harrison, who also penned Four Ainsty Townships, it is another comprehensive and fascinating delve into the past of a previously overlooked part of our region.

Almost every local history book contains some reference to warfare. Alan Whitworth's twin books Northern Strongholds Volumes 1 and 2 exclusively deal with the local fortifications built in times of conflict.

One of North Yorkshire's foremost historians, with books on such diverse subjects as the railways and the bronze plaques of York, Alan Whitworth has provided another couple of gems here.

Volume 1 deals with North Yorkshire, Volume 2 with York and East Yorkshire. Each contains an A-Z encyclopaedia of castles built after the Norman conquest, making them ideal reference books.

There are many detailed sketches, plus fold-out plans of the layouts of the castles.

Hopping randomly through the pages is an entertaining way to learn something new about the area. Middleham Castle, for example, was "neglected and despoiled" while in the hands of keepers employed by the Crown. By 1609 it had not been lived in for a century and a half.

Topcliffe Castle, meanwhile, was the residence of the Percy family before they went on to greater things - Alnwick Castle in Northumberland, made famous the world over as Hogwarts, Harry Potter's school in the films.

"The old castle," Alan notes of Topcliffe, "which probably never had any masonry defences, was superseded by a manor house built slightly to the north-west by the Percy family, known as Cock Lodge.

"It was here that Henry, 4th Earl of Northumberland, was slain. He had made himself unpopular in Yorkshire by the betrayal of Richard III, and met with resistance when levying a tax in 1489.

"Henry sent for help, but a mob collected and on April 28 1489 marched upon Cock Lodge. The Earl was the first man to be killed."

Volume 2 contains a detailed summary of York's castles, as well as a medieval map of city's fortresses and a pull out diagram of the elevations of Clifford's Tower.

Alan explores the scale of the city fortifications in the book.

"The 13th century fort also had a large defended bailey area to the south-east now occupied by three 18th century buildings - the Female Prison; the County Assize Court; and the Debtor's Prison - all now house museums.

"In the Middle Ages the entire courtyard area was walled and equipped with mural towers, and was entered through two gateways over a moat.

"The four-acre courtyard then contained timber and later stone halls, a chapel, kitchen and gaol. In later times highwaymen, Jacobites, Luddites and Chartists were incarcerated, tried and sometimes hung here."

York's importance in medieval times is reflected in the number of royal visits it attracted.

"Of the history of the castle on the River Foss in the reigns of William Rufus, Henry I and King Stephen, which came to be known as York Castle, we have little record, but from 1154 onwards it became the focus of much of England's history as monarch after monarch paid frequent visits to this key city of the North, living in the royal house on the castle motte and from there directing the affairs of State.

"Henry II stayed at York in 1155, 1158, 1163 and again in 1175. As was the custom on these royal itineraries, he was accompanied by his Curia, or Council, and held at the castle such courts as the Forest Pleas of Assize, and the Curia Regia over which the king himself presided; from these royal courts, as opposed to the local feudal courts, there grew up not only the great Common Law of England but the groundwork of much of our political structure."

Northern Strongholds Volume 1: North Yorkshire and Volume 2: York and East Yorkshire are published by Culva House Publications, at £5.99 each; see www.culvahouse.co.uk for more information.

Just space left to mention the Ryedale Historian 2004-5, containing articles and reviews from the Helmsley Archaeological and Historical Society, was published this summer, and is on sale at £5.

Updated: 10:00 Monday, August 30, 2004