Swainby: Front door to the North York Moors

In the Crook Beck valley, overlooked by the moorlands of the Cleveland Hills and north-western boundary of the North York Moors National Park, Swainby has a literal magnetic draw that continues to forge the community.

At the last count the one-time ironstone mining parish, almost midway between Northallerton and Stokesley, had a population of just 563 and yet it supports several thriving pubs, cafes and shops.

Sitting close to the A19, just a mile off the Coast to Coast national trail as well as the Cleveland Way, the village has a stunning, heavily forested backdrop to the south which has been heralded the “North York Moors’ front door”.

South-west of the village, where Holgate turns into Green Lane, as the Cleveland Way re-enters woodland it passes a Victorian railway wagon now being used as a shed. A short distance further on the track leads to the mouth of blocked ventilation and main drift tunnels for an ironstone mine which operated from 1857 to 1887. A railway, the course of which is evident as a line of vegetation on Swainby’s eastern fringe, was built from the mine to transport the ore.

According to the Northern Mine Research Society, in 1871 Swainby had 38 miners, some of whom worked the area’s jet deposits, which continues to be reflected by scarred hillsides and the 19th century housing at the High Street’s northern end.

With its population doubing, the three decades were to transform what had developed as a small agricultural settlement as a result of people relocating there from the Black Death ravaged castle village of Whorlton, about a mile to its north-east.

The well-preserved 14th century gatehouse of the hilltop castle, on the site of a wooden Norman motte-and-bailey fort, can be seen from the roadside. It is alongside earthworks of gardens and ponds and scattered stones and farmland remain of a deserted medieval village and beside a grade I listed Holy Cross Church.

It features what is believed to be Yorkshire’s only wooden military effigy, the craftmanship of which has been likened to those in Westminster Abbey.

Despite Whorlton having been deserted, some Swainby residents continued to attend regular services there until the 1870s, when the ruined castle’s stone was transported down the hill to create, on the south side of what is now Church Lane, another Holy Cross Church.

The church in the village boasts a three-stage tower and stone spire, it is renowned for its stained glass. This includes a window featuring war-like saints, commemorating local landowner the Marquis of Ailesbury, who bankrolled the building of the church, and Major General Charles Gordon, with the window created the year after he was killed by Mahdist forces capturing Khartoum. The grade II listed Victorian church is also regarded for its dramatic ‘Hanging Rood’, an intricately carved crucifix suspended from the east aisle’s ceiling.

The Church Lane and High Street area feature an array of interesting properties. Most buildings in the older part of the village were built using sandstone, in some cases with herringbone patterns. Pantile roofs are common. While there are numerous single storey 18th century stone cottages, Church Farm dates from a similar era and opposite it a Victorian former school building which appears quite alien in the rural setting.

Opened in 1856, significantly about the time of the opening of ironstone mines in nearby Scugdale, the Elizabethan revival style school cost the Marquis of Ailesbury, lord of the manor of Whorlton, £800 to build.

Whorlton Memorial School is a rare surviving example of a village school built before the 1870 Education Act, which sparked a a surge in school provision. The main classroom extended across the street frontage, while a side wing accommodated two smaller schoolroom. The building also included master's house a number of surviving outbuildings have been recorded, including the original detached toilet block.

The school closed in 1968 and was subsequently moved to Claver Close for the next 49 years before finally closing, with just 14 pupils, in 2017. While at the time a school governor claimed the community’s spirit was “slowly dying off”, nine houses now stand on the former school site.

While the Victorian school and church are key landmarks in Swainby, it’s most distinctive feature is its exceptionally wide high street, with Swainby or Scugdale Beck, which flows through the centre of the village. With several becks flowing from the Cleveland Hills, by the 18th century Swainby became noted as a centre for cottage weaving and bleaching of fine linens.

Scugdale Beck’s importance to the village is emphasised by its banks being kept as open space planted with ornamental trees and more than a dozen benches.

The beck can be crossed in several places, including an early 19th sandstone bridge with a single segmental arch near the church and a footbridge opposite leading to the expansive Black Horse Inn, described by the Campaign for Real Ale as a “cosy welcoming establishment with large beer garden”.

Another road bridge and junction occurs at the northern end of the main street, beside the Blacksmiths Arms, a family-owned free house which can trace it roots to 1775. Known for its steaks, in a nod to nearby Teesside the large pub also serves parmos – breaded chicken escalopes in béchamel sauce.

Along with the walkers, the pubs and other cafes in the village are sustained by custom from a caravan park, open 52 weeks of the year and exclusively for owners, on the eastern side of Crook Beck.

The north end of the High Street, south of Maynard Bridge, also features a pinfold, a compound into which stray animals were enclosed unless their owners claimed them, believed to date from the 1830s, which has been restored as a public space.