In this chilling investigation of foul deeds and mysterious deaths, former police inspector, Peter N Walker leads the reader through this native countryside in search of the truth behind many unexplained mysteries and unsolved murders. Isolated moorland inns and quiet dales conceal memorable tales of passion and despair from ancient times right up to the present day. This wide-ranging and breathtaking collection of murders and mysteries are intriguing and informative, whether you know the North York Moors or not.

 

The area known as the North York Moors comprises a tract of high ground between Middlesbrough to the north and York to the south. The market towns of Northallerton and Thirsk lie over to the west while the dramatic Yorkshire coast marks the eastern boundary. The coastal area is well known due to resorts like Scarborough and Whitby, and through the romantic fishing villages of Staithes, Runswick Bay and Robin Hood’s Bay. Somewhat less well known is the range of deep dales and elevated, bleak moorland which lies between those points. There are lonely farmhouses and isolated villages, sparkling rivers and a wealth of wildlife surrounded by market-towns where the quality of life continues to be the envy of many. It is a part of England which is separated from the Yorkshire Dales and Pennines by the huge Vale of Mowbray and which even now remains largely undiscovered, probably because of its distance from the main railways, roads and centres of industry and population. The area collectively known as the North York Moors comprises an assemblage of many smaller moors divided from one another by steep-sided dales, some of outstanding charm and beauty. It was the beauty of the area which led to its declaration, in 1952, as a National Park. Now known as the North York Moors National Park, it covers some 553 square miles (1,432 square kilometres) and is one of two National Parks within the County of North Yorkshire. The other is the Dales National Park which includes the Yorkshire Dales and the Pennine region. Lying immediately to the south of the North York Moors National Park is a recently designated area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. This is the Howardian Hills which includes parts of Ryedale and borders some fine market towns such as Helmsley, Kirkbymoorside, Pickering and Malton while embracing the renowned Castle Howard, made so famous by the television series Brideshead Revisited. The whole of the North York Moors is steeped in history and tradition. For example, out of thirty-one manorial courts still surviving in England and Wales, fi ve are within North Yorkshire and four of them are within the North York Moors, all actively carrying out their functions, many of which relate to common land, grazing rights or rights of way. In Eskdale, the Glaisdale and Lealholm Society for the Prosecution of Felons also survives. In the Middle Ages, societies of this kind existed to help the parish constable deal with local crime, and they were created when villagers formed themselves into associations for self-protection. They built up their fi nances from rewards for the recovery of stolen livestock, but as the modern police service gained acceptance and rural constables were posted to villages, these societies disappeared. The one at Glaisdale may be the only such survivor in England and Wales. Also in Eskdale, at Egton Bridge, there is an annual Gooseberry Show where giant gooseberries are shown, and still further down the valley, a steam railway runs across the moors to Pickering and makes use of a route pioneered in the 1830s by George Stephenson. Their survival is some indication of the continuing fascination of life upon these moors.

 

 

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