A look back at working lives in Ryedale

Last week we concentrated mainly on farming photos, many of them taken by the incomparable Sydney Smith. This week we focus more on working people.

First up is Pickering Council’s steam roller gang, taken during what was presumably a well-earned rest from work on Cropton Lane, Wrelton, in the 1920s.

The roller is a ten-ton engine built by T Green of Leeds. The driver, in the centre of the photo with the watch chain, was George Newman.

The woman sitting with a baby on her knee is Mrs Newman, with her daughter, Alice.

Fast forward to 1938, and butter-making at Cote Hill Farm in Farndale.

The “butter maids” are Caroline, Annie and Lillie Wheldon, and the three passing hikers Alec Falconer, Jim Murray and Alec Wright.

Next, Cropton carrier Jack Frank is pictured with his cart near the New Inn at Cropton in 1939. The man standing with a scythe in his hand beside the road is Henry Peirson, a council roadman. The small boy is Peter Croot.

There is another Croot in our fourth photo: Eric Croot. He is the boy watching Cropton blacksmith George Hill shoe a horse owned by Feasters of Cropton.

The labourer is Herbert Norminton. There is no date for the photo, but it was presumably taken after 1938, when Mr Hill took over the blacksmith’s forge at the top of Cropton Bank.

And finally, we have a photograph of workmen cutting timber at Farndale, using a traction engine to drive the saw. Neither the date nor the photographer is known.

• Ryedale From Old Photographs, by Gordon Clitheroe, is published by Amberley, priced £12.99. It is available from local bookshops, and signed copies are available from the Beck Isle Museum in Pickering.

Many of the photos in the book come from the collection at the museum, of which Mr Clitheroe is a founding member and honorary curator. The museum is open daily from 10am-5pm until the end of October

Working on timber at Farndale