BY Yorkshire standards, Yeoman Williamson is still a relative newcomer to Grosmont. He has, he points out, lived in the North York Moors village for 'only' 50 years. It may seem a little presumptuous of him, then, to have attempted to write a history of his adopted village.

But he can probably be forgiven. He's a Yorkshireman, at least - and Fryup on the North York Moors, where he was born, is hardly a million miles away.

Since arriving in Grosmont 50 years ago, the now retired farmer and his wife Jean have thrown themselves into village life, becoming involved with the church, the school, the cricket club and the darts teams.

Add in his 16 year spell as a county councillor and there was probably nobody better placed to undertake the task.

It was the coming of the new Millennium that set him to thinking about writing a book. He had never tried anything like it before. "But I thought it would be interesting if I could put something together that would describe the village over the last 100 years," he says.

"There is quite a lot of history that was disappearing."

During the last 50 years, he's watched that happening himself. He describes the way in which the village has changed in the introduction to his book, The Grosmont Millennium, printed by York-based Maxiprint.

"On our arrival Grosmont was a very busy industrial village, the brickyard was in full production, also the slag yard, with its stone cracker, which was still being worked," he writes.

"The station was the main line junction for trains going to York and Middlesbrough.

There were many small business including Harrison's Stonemasons, Builders, Joiners and Undertakers, the Grosmont Co-operative Society, blacksmiths and butchers."

Today, he says, it is still a busy little village - but in a different way. The school closed in 1996; the brickyard has closed, the slag yard has closed, and so have many of the small businesses. The main centre of employment now is probably the privately-owned North York Moors Railway.

So if ever there was going to be a book written which could capture a glimpse of the village as it was over the last 100 years, it had to be now, before too many of the older generation who remembered the past were gone.

The book took him two years to compile. He spoke to everyone he could think of - and it quickly began to snowball. As well as telling him their memories, people gave him old photos and even offered to write contributions themselves.

The result is a 120-page book packed with old photos and glimpses of a way of life that is fast disappearing.

It actually covers far more than just the last 100 years. During the late 19th century, the village was an important iron-producing centre.

The iron works were built in the area now known locally as the 'slag bank' - just to the north of the Railway Station - in 1862.

"Soon, two blast furnaces were operating on the site using, as raw materials, locally mined ironstone, limestone from the Pickering area and coke imported via the newly-opened North Yorkshire and Cleveland Railway," Mr Williamson writes.

Iron production peaked in 1875, by which time Grosmont had taken on the appearance of an industrial village. A third blast furnace was opened that year. But then the price of pig iron began to fall due to competition from steel making, and by 1891, after years of difficulty and declining production, the works closed.

Human ingenuity being what it is, however, that wasn't the end of the story. During the early years of the 20th century, the slag itself was 'mined', broken, graded and sold as road stone. Later still 'slag wool' was made there - the slag heated until it was molten and then injected with air, which gave it the appearance of cotton wool. It made great insulation, in particular as fireproof packing in boilers.

There was plenty more going on in Grosmont, too - and The Grosmont Millennium remembers it all. There are sections on many of the local businesses that made the village such a thriving and busy little community - Harrison's Builders, Eves Bakery, the Grosmont Co-operative Society and George Duck the Butcher, established in 1820 on Front Street.

By the early 20th Century the original Mr Duck's grandson, also called George, had taken over the business - by then it had moved to the other side of the street - and had built up an "excellent Yorkshire ham and bacon trade," Mr Williamson writes.

"In those days, a lot of pig killing was done, the pigs were salted in the basement, dried on the first floor and stored on the second."

As befits a man who threw himself so wholeheartedly into village life, Grosmont's social and sporting institutions are well represented. The football club, the cricket club, the choral society, women's institute and even Grosmont Home Guard all get an honourable mention, with plenty of sepia-tinted photos to bring back the memories.

And since, while it may have been in part an industrial village but has always remained a farming centre too, there is a lengthy section on Grosmont farm life.

Some of the photos are wonderfully evocative, such as that of an elderly man with a bushy white beard and greatcoat standing in a field, clutching the hand of a little girl. The photograph, taken in 1902 at harvest time, shows a "field of wheat stooked up to dry out", Mr Williamson writes. "The fields had to be cut with horses and binder."

Above all the book recalls some of the village's characters from days long past. None were more colourful than Zachariah 'Zachy' Swales, who lived at Waterloo Cottages in the village.

A talented footballer, Zachy and his wife were well-known as pedlars "who covered a ten mile radius selling their wares", Mr Williamson writes.

"Zachariah maintained that he could travel at a speed of five miles an hour all day, covering rough ground, carrying his basket on his head".

Usually, his basket contained household goods such as pots, pans, cups, jugs and cutlery.

But on one memorable occasion, for a bet, he carried 100 old horseshoes from Stockton Market to Wharfedale Street - it took four men just to lift the load on to and off his head.

Another time, meeting a man in York who was carrying six baskets of plums on his head, he promptly set off carrying 12 baskets - with his hands in his pockets.

These prodigious feats seem not to have harmed him at all. He died in Whitby Hospital on December 18 1946 at 75 - a "fine old gentleman", as the book puts it.

- The Grosmont Millennium: Reflections and Recollections is available from the author, priced £9.50 (£10.90 including postage and packing). Write to Yeoman Williamson, Alum Garth, Front Street, Grosmont, Whitby, YO22 5PF.

Updated: 10:16 Monday, August 05, 2002