Even Further Up North - County Durham and the North Yorkshire Moors

Escomb Saxon church - built about 670

Church and church yard are in a circular enclosure - the church is built over a pagan burial mound/site

The builders used stone from a ruined Roman Fort, this arch was the entry to the bath house

Larger window added at a later date

Even lunchtime pubs have a history - Malcolm is reading the story: the song 'My Grandfather's Clock' was written by someone staying here who was told how the clock stopped when the publican died.

Narrow roads going up to the North York Moors

stone walls and autumn berries

You can't go past coffee with scones, cream and jam

I was hoping that we might turn up some information about my great-great-grandfather.  He died aged 28 having been run over by wagons at Whitton Park Ironworks in County Durham.  Family records tell that he was buried in nearby Escomb Church so I was hoping for better luck with the gravestones, something on the lines of '...beloved son of...' as I don't know who his parents were.

Interestingly Escomb Church is fascinating in its own right, it is the oldest, non-altered Saxon Church in England.  We were lucky that the vicar (presumably) was in the church and was able to tell us all about the history of the church and local information.  It was built when the first Celtic Monks came to Britain on the site of a Pagan sacred place (excavations found 2 skeletons below the foundations of the church).

Unfortunately no gravestone with my ancestors name on.  The vicar told us that there is a Victorian graveyard up on the hill which we checked out but it was amazingly overgrown so we gave up on that too.  So genealogically no further on!

Lunch was at the George in Piercebridge, a village where we inspected the remains of a Roman bridge, recently uncovered. History is everywhere in England!

On the way back to Stapleford we went through the narrow lanes of the North York Moors, stopping for a cream tea - as you do!
There endeth the trip up north.