IN years gone by, small rural communities tended to be very self-sufficient.
Virtually every small market town, village and hamlet in North Yorkshire had its own shops, blacksmith, wheelwright, school, church and pub, writes local historian Gordon Clitheroe in his latest book, Ryedale Through Time. Ryedale was no exception. “People did not have to travel out of their own locality.
“On market day, the local carrier moved farm produce and goods from the villages into the nearest market towns to be sold or exchanged. Goods such as coal and limestone were transported by horse and wagon.”
The arrival of the railways, followed by two world wars, changed forever the way we live. But in Ryedale Through Time Gordon, founder member and honorary curator of the Beck Isle Museum, takes us back to the days when local communities really were little worlds unto themselves.
Ryedale Through Time is the second book he has published recently with Amberley.
Another, Ryedale From Old Photographs, was featured in these pages a few weeks ago.
Like that earlier book, Through Time draws upon the extensive collection of old photographs at the Beck Isle Museum, in this case, pairing them with modern photographs.
We only have space to feature a few of the old photographs today, showing people at work, but between them they provide a wonderful window on the past:
• Jack Marshall, of Pickering, driving down the narrow-gauge railway track from the sand quarry at Saintoft to the crushing plant at Newbridge limestone quarry near Pickering. The sand was used for moulding cast-iron baths and similar items in foundries.
• Blacksmiths (thought to be the Rogers brothers), fit a wooded cartwheel on a steel hoop to check its size.
They would then have clamped it on to a cast-iron hooping plate, before heating the steel rim to red hot, then hammering it on the wheel and cooling it with water. The photograph, precise date unknown, was taken outside the blacksmith’s shop on the village green in Thornton Dale.
• Helmsley Fire Brigade, precise date unknown. Flags are flying, so they could be taking part in a parade.
• Sinnington Post Office, again precise date unknown.
Two postmen are posing either side of a man thought to be Postmaster R Dowson and his three children.
• Schoolgirls pose with their sheepdog outside the old school in Thorgill, near Rosedale. The building, now demolished, was used as a school in the 1860s.
• Ryedale Through Time is published by Amberley priced £14.99.
The Beck Isle Museum in Pickering is open daily from 10am to 5pm until the end of October
The old school at Thorgill
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