Glaisdale:
Glaisdale is a village and
civil parish in the Scarborough district of North Yorkshire, England.
It lies on the River Esk, between the villages of Lealholm and Egton
Bridge, 8 miles west of Whitby, and is served by Glaisdale
railway station on the Esk Valley Line. The village lies on the
national hiking trail the Esk Valley Walk. According to the 2001 UK
census, Glaisdale parish had a population of 974. In 1831 Glaisdale was a parochial
township in the parish of Danby, of which, however, it is now entirely
independent.
There is no fixed boundary between the two places, but an arrangement
was made about 1870 by which the line of division runs south from the
undivided moor north of Oakley Walls through Howlsyke to the Esk up
Fryup Beck to within half a mile of Woodhead Farm; it then strikes
further south-west.
Glaisdale township contains the hamlets of Lealholm Bridge, Howlsyke,
Green Houses, Stonegate and part of Great Fryup.
The name of Glaisdale Moor occurs in 1223, but no township or hamlet
of Glaisdale is noticed during the Middle Ages.
Glaisdale is one of the many small valleys formed by the streams that
flow from north and south to the River Esk. All these streams descend
through the districts known respectively as their Head and their
Dale to their End at their junction with the Esk. From the south
Danby, Little Fryup and Great Fryup Becks descend from Danby High
Moor, about 1,300 ft. above the ordnance datum. Then follows Glaisdale
Beck, which rises on Glaisdale Moor, at a height of 1,100 ft. above
ordnance datum, and flows north through Glaisdale Head and Dale to the
village of Glaisdale End.
Through the erection in about 1864 of
iron furnaces, now dismantled, Glaisdale End was transformed from a
scattered hamlet into a closely built and populous village.
Its High Street leads from the vicarage and church at the south to the
Green on the north. Glaisdale Hall, a farm, lies to the west, and to
the south is the once haunted farm of Hart Hall. Here visited a
beneficent Hob, who rendered mysterious aid in the fields to the
husbandman until he was driven away by a well-meant gift from the
grateful farm-hands. From the north the Esk is joined in Danby
and Glaisdale parishes by Commondale Beck, part of the western
boundary of Danby, Ewe Crag Beck which enters it at Dale or Danby End,
Clither Beck which flows by Doubting Castle, Park Head Beck which
joins it at Lealholm Bridge, a hamlet three-quarters of a mile west of
Lealholm Hall, and finally by Hardale Beck. Hardale Beck forms part of
the northern and, with Glaisdale Beck, the eastern boundary of the
parish, passing beside those hamlets under the names of Green Houses
Beck and Stonegate Beck, and joining the Esk at Hole Trough Bridge by
Rake Wath. The wooded valley of the Esk west of Lealholm is called
Crunkley Gill.
There were five mediaeval stone bridges over the Esk, three in Danby,
one in Glaisdale and the fifth near Sleights station, the earliest
dated from about 1286 and all were built beside a previous wath or
ford. At the point where Glaisdale Beck enters the Esk is the
Glaisdale 'Beggar's Bridge.' The original 14th-century bridge here had
probably disappeared by 1577. The present structure bears the date
1619 and the initials T.F. for Thomas Ferris (Ferries, Firris), an
alderman of Hull, the traditional builder. According to some accounts
Ferris was a poor native of Egton or Danby; according to others he
came into the district as a tramp. Saved by stepping-stones at this
point when crossing the stream in a time of flood, he vowed that if
ever he were able to afford it he would build a bridge as a token of
gratitude. The bridge was called 'Ferris Bridge' in 1676.
Beggars Bridge, Glaisdale
Almost next to the station is Beggars Bridge, the famous packhorse
bridge built by Thomas Ferries in 1619, an ancient pannierway, made of
stone trods, passes up through Arncliffe Woods. The Legend
of Beggars Bridge is an independent short film produced by
Eboracum Pictures of York. This endearing folktale tells of the poor
Ferris, a poor man from the village of Glaisdale who hoped to wed the
daughter of a wealthy local squire. In order to win her hand, he
planned to set sail from Whitby to make his fortune. On the night that
he left, the Esk was swollen with rainfall and he was unable to make a
last visit to his intended. He eventually returned from his travels a
rich man and after marrying the squire's daughter, built Beggar's
Bridge so that no other lovers would be separated as they were, those
many years ago. The small settlement of Carr End is next to the
station. The main village of Glaisdale is a mile away. Like the
village of Grosmont, in the nineteenth century Glaisdale was an
ironstone-mining village, similarly recognisable by its terraces of
slate-roofed cottages
