Don't Trust the Neighbours

(a not so peaceful Swaledale)

(Richard Hunt)

24.04.18

To the casual observer Swaledale is a peaceful and rural location and although the remains of a lead mining past litter the landscape it is hard to imagine it as a landscape full of industrial activity. It is even harder to imagine it as a place of violence, where defending yourself and your home from your neighbours was an important factor in your life - but although the clues to a past of unrest, danger and war are not as immediately visible as those of the industrial past they are still there, pointing up the fact that for most of the last 2000 years, (at least), it really was a case in Swaledale of "don't trust the neighbours"

This page contains information from many sources, including books by Fieldhouse and Jennings, Andrew Fleming, Edmund Bogg, Thomas Dunham Whitaker and even by the remarkably named Marshal-General George Henry de Staboglie Neville Plantagenant Harrison as well as a few bits of my own research, and attempts to draw together the evidence of this "unquiet past".

(Note: if anyone has a copy of the Melbecks Parochial Magazine No. 9 of 1878 I would really like to see it, as I believe it has an early report on something included later in this accont)

In the bottom half of the Dale we have three major sites:

1. Richmond Castle, (a Norman castle founded in 1086), defending the entrance to the dale as a whole.

2. Whitcliffe Scar, two miles east of Marsk, (a late Iron Age / Romano - British defended settlement).

3. How Hill, Downholm, (an Iron Age hillfort), controling the centre of the dale.

Two of these sites were built to dominate the areas around them, but when we move further up the Dale we come across something completely different - the earthworks kmown as "The Fremington Dykes".

These dykes can be split into at least three separate groups each of which may have been built by different people at different times, perhaps centuries apart, but they all had one very clear message - the people living in the upper Dale definately did not like the people living in the lower Dale.

The first of these is known as The Rudic and can best be seen to the north of the main road from Richmond, adjacent to Marrick Priory.

Next is the first of the two main Fremington dykes.This starts up on the moor edge in the south, proceeds down into the valley bottom, passes through Low and High Fremington and carries on up the northern hillside towards the moors.

The second of this pair lies approximately 700 yards behind the first, again starting up on the hilllside to the south, (Dyke House is roughly mid-way between the southern ends of these two dykes), and proceeds down towards the river, would have passed directly through Reeth, (probably underneath the Museum), and can be found again north of Reeth, again carrying on up the hillside towards the moors.

Each of these two latter dykes would have been well over a mile in length, both face east and are clearly intended to stop anyone advancing westwards up the dale.

The third major dyke is to be found on top of Harker Hill about half a mile west of the second Fremington dyke and running for about three quarters of a mile in a south westerly direction, (taking advantage of the hillside), and again facing down the dale.

The dates of all these dykes are open to speculation, claims having been made that they are Bronze Age, Iron Age (a defence against the Romans), post-Roman (a defence against the Anglo-Saxons), and Viking, (again probably against Anglo-Saxons).

However, recent excavation work carried out by SWAAG has produced two peices of evidence based on carbon dating that suggest that the two main Fremington dykes are not older than about 50 BC, (and so could be either late Iron Age or post Roman), whilst the Harker Hill dyke (which looks different anyway), dates to 940 - 1040 AD (and is therefore probably Viking). Regretably the sample relating to the Fremington Dyke is not thought to be secure and there is still a "vigorous" ongoing debate concerning the date of these two dykes, (centered chiefly on whether one of the dykes lies under or over a small Romano-British settlement site on Harkerside).

Fortunately the Harker Hill date still stands, and fits very well with the disturbances that are known to have happened in the area at that time, (control of the Kingdom of Northumbria changing hands at least ten times in a period of 27 years, starting in 927 AD with the submission of King Sigtrygg to Athelstan of Wessex and ending with the murder of Eric Bloodax on Stainmore in 954 AD).

It is also perhaps worth noting that irrespective of wether the Fremington Dykes were constructed in the Bronze Age, Iron Age or Dark Ages, at least one of them must have been capable of being put back into use at the end of the 10th centuary AD, as the Harkerside Dyke would be completely useless without it.

(There are several more dykes in the area of Harker Hill but unfortunately there is no evidence as to what they might have been for or when they might have been built).

Further up the dale we have another (smallish) iron age hill fort - Maiden Castle, built half way up the southern side of the dale just past Healaugh.

And then we have "The Hows", of which there are at least 16 in upper Swaledale, (plus at least two in the lower dale - the hillfort at Downholme already mentioned and "Round Howe" on the opposite side of the river from the defended site at Whitcliffe Scar, just outside Richmond)

How / Howe names can refer to a topographical feature, (a smallish hill), or to an artificial hill or mound, (often built for either defensive or burial purposes), Howel may refer to a flat piece of ground isolated by a river bend, but it seems that in Swaledale at least, a significant number of these features turn out to be (defended) habitation sites. In other words if you find something called a How it may well be more than "just a hill" as can be seen from the list below.

Number 1 is said to be a Roman defended site and number 2 contains part of one of the Fremington Dykes. Numbers 3 and 4 have earthworks on them and number 5 even if natural is asking to be used for defensive purposes. Number 6 is an Iron Age defended site and number 7, even if it isn't the site itself, must be right next to the site mentioned in 1901 and 1908 when it was reported that "seven bodies and their accoutrements" had been found in 1846/47 "in a mound just west of Melbecks vicarage". Number 8 is again an excellent defensive site which also happens to lie next to a field called Tute Hill. This may be significant, as Tute / Toot names are said to derive from a term meaning a lookout point.

The other eight "How" locations, (numbers 9,10,11,12,13,14,15 and 16 in the list below), all further up the dale, still need to be looked at, but it is again perhaps worth noting that number 11 is adjacent to, and number 13 is very close to, the other two "Tute Hills" recorded in the dale.

Also, and especially in light of the events recorded further on in this article, it is perhaps worth noting that Hartley and Ingilby record a tradition that Brown How, (No.16 in the list), marks the burial place of casualties from one of their many incursions into the Dale during the first half of the 14th century. (A long standing resident informed me that it covers the remains of 30 Scottish raiders).

In column 3 below p123 (for example) would refer to page 123 in "Swaledale - Valley of the Wild River" by Andrew Fleming

and 123 would mean field number 123 on the 1840 Enclosure Award maps available on the SWAAG website.

Adittionally there are reports that prior to 1833 several pieces of Roman military horse fittings now in the York and British Museums - dating to the Flavian period (second half of the 1st century AD), were found in Fremington Hagg and that in 1823 "at Crackpot, several pieces of iron armour together with several battleaxes"  were said to have been found.

Moving on to recorded history we come first to the Harrying of the North. This occurred over the winter of 1069 / 70 when William the Conqueror laid waste to large areas of the North in his campaign to subjugate the rebellious inhabitants. 

The effects of this on the Dale can be seen in the lists of Count Alan's lands in the Domesday Book, (1086). This records the value of his various holdings in the dale in both 1086 and twenty years earlier in 1066.

In the Domesday entries for Downholm, Ellerton Abbey, Marrick, Grinton, Fremington and Reeth, (which included all the settlements further up the dale), every single holding was recorded as "Waste" in 1086 as compared with values between 5s and 20s twenty years before.

We have already noted the founding of  the castle at Richmond, but it was perhaps fortunate that the 2nd Earl of Richmond, John de Bretagne had begun to build Richmond's town walls before his death in 1304, pulling down several houses to clear the line required, because in1314 Scottish armies / raiders arrived outside the town, returning in 1316 and 1322, in both of the latter years being prevetned from attacking the town only by being "bought off" by the inhabitants, before they proceeded up the dale, burning and looting the undefended villages and farms as they went - which they did again in 1326.

Some indication of the effects of these raids can be seen by the fact that in 1318 the King cancelled arrears of tax due from Marrick Priory due to its "destruction by the Scots", (Eggleston Abbey near Barnard Castle receiving similar relief due to its "impoverishment by the Scots"), and from the letter written by William de Melton, Archbishop of York in 1322 to the Pope, stating that the Scots raids had reduced most of the religious buildings, villages and manors in the Archdeaconry of Richmond to ashes and smouldering embers. (See also the previous note referring to Brown How as the burial site of Scots killed during one of these raids).

Given this level of threat it is perhaps not surprising that in 1312, 1332 and 1338 Richmond received grants of murage (the right to levy a tax for the specific purpose of building or strengthening town walls).

However, in 1333 things started to improve for the inhabitants of the Dale when the Scots were defeated at Halidon Hill near Berwick by the new King Edward lll and again in 1346 when Richmond was chosen as the mustering point for the English army under the command of the Archbishop of York before it marched to Duham and defeated (and captured) King David II of Scotland at the battle of Nevilles Cross.

Even so, this didn't prevent Scottish raiders totally despoiling Ellerton Priory, two miles East of Grinton in the following year,  (1347).

In relation to these raids, when Alan and Judith Wells looked at the surviving tax returns for the Dale for this period they found that a comparison of the Lay Subsidies for 1301 (before the raids started) and 1327 (at the hight of the raids), show a dramatic 85% fall in the tax assessments for Richmond, Marrick and Arkengarthdale, a 75% fall for Marske and a 54% fall for Reeth, (as shown in the table below).

But just in case you thought that these figures suggest that Reeth got off rather more lightly than the rest of the Lower Dale, you need to remember that for tax purposes "Reeth" represents the whole of the Upper Dale, and, assuming that the Scots went back northwards via Arkengarthdale, (which the figures suggest is correct), then although Reeth was probably as badly hit, (probably burnt to the ground), as the other places mentioned in the Lower Dale, because the Upper Dale may have escaped most of the destruction inflicted on those villages directly in the path of the Scots this would result in the, (relatively), lower reduction in the assessment for Reeth when compared to the rest of the Lower Dale.

(Life at the time was not made any easier by a succession of poor summers in the early years of the century).

It is also worth remembering "Border Service", a tradition dating from the feudal period but still in existence in the 16th cenyury, (F and J p114). This required those tenants who held their land subject to this service as part of their customary dues, to assist in the defence of the North when summoned by their Lord.

Border Service certainly applied to the tenants of Rievaulx Abbey in Upper Swaledale, (around Oxnop and Muker), and in their half of the manor of Healaugh, as well as to the tenants of tha Lordship of Richmond in Reeth, Healaugh, Harkerside and Crackpot and it seems reasonable to suppose that the same military service was originally required from almost all of the tenants in the Dale.

This duty meant that each tenant had to provide a man equipped with "a jack or coat of plate, a sallet, a pair of splents and a bow and arrows or a bill". (A jack being a type of flexible body armour made up of small overlapping steel plates sewn between layers of cloth or canvas, a sallet was a basic form of steel helmet, (without a visor), splents were a type of armour for the arm or leg and a bill was a long pole weapon with a combination blade / hook / spike attached to the top).

Then in 1537 came the Pilgrimage of Grace, (provoked by the closure of the monasteries), ending with the Lord of the Manor of Healaugh, Sir Francis Bigod being hanged at York and a small number of local rebels being hanged at Richmond, and this was followed 32 years later by the Northern Rebellion of 1569 with Richmond being first looted by the Duke of Northumberland for not supporting the rebellion and then a few weeks later being ransacked by the Queen's army for not being supportive enough of the crown.

During this latter unrest the mansion house and church at Marrick was attacked by a group of locals armed with swords, spears and bows and arrows, (possibly a settleing of local scores), and the rebellion ended, (for the Dale), with the customary few locals being hanged at Richmond.

The Civil War?

We then have to wait until 1757 for the next episode of unpleasentness to occur, when "A large body of men from Wensleydale and Swaledale marched into Richmond under the self styled General Johnson threatening to burn the town down unless they were permited to fix the price of corn and other provisions" (F and J p285). However the mayor with the help of the gentlemen of the area, who had managed to raise a force of 700 horse and 200 foot from their tenants and other supporters read the riot act in the market place and had the ring-leaders arrested - those arrested were perhaps lucky to escape with only being charged with felony and misdemeanor.

Bringing us upto the 20th century we have the defaced inscriptions on Gunnerside Little Bridge and on Oxnop Bridge - the names are said to have been erased in 1940 in case of invasion, "Operation  Gunnerside" was used as the code name for the sabotage of the heavy water plant in Norway, carried out in order to delay the German developement of an atomic bomb, (the name being chosen by the head of the SOE who used to visit the village before the war for the grouse shooting), and the Burgoyne Hotel in Reeth being taken over and used as the Headquarters of the  Recconnaisance Corps Battle School Headquarters for the latter part of the war.

And not forgetting the four RAF aircraft that crashed in the dale:

31st March1941 when a Hawker Hurricane fighter on a training flight crashed on Ravenseat Moor

15th February 1942 when a Halifax bomber returning from a raid on St. Nazaire, having spent too long over the target due to thick cloud cover ran out of fuel on its return and crashed near Keld

28th January1943 when another Halifax bomber this time on a training flight crashed into Great Shunner Fell to the west of Thwaite. The mid-upper gunner, Sgt. C. L. Pudney being awarded the George medal for his attempts to rescue other crew members from the burning aircraft.

29th May1943 when a Wellington bomber returning from a raid on Wuppertal in Germany crashed into Fremington Edge near Reeth.

(I have been told that a wheelbarrow at Rash Grange incorporates the tail wheel from one of the two Halifax bombers).

And finally, we have the reuse from 1965 - 1991 of one of the mounds forming How Hill in Grinton, as a cold war Royal Observer Corps bunker.

A peaceful Swaledale anyone?