Lealholm developed around the first place you could sensibly cross the River Esk, just downstream of the dramatic gorge of Crunkly Ghyll. In the good old days, people splashed through a ford until someone finally built this graceful 17th-century bridge, which managed to survive the disastrous 1930 flood—unlike the bridges further downstream in Glaisdale, Egton, and Sleights. The village’s name, derived from Anglo-Saxon “lael” and “holm,” means “settlement near the willow trees.”
Over the years, Lealholm has seen its fair share of industry. Back in medieval times, when the area was more forest than farmland, it boasted no less than five iron smelting furnaces. Later, water from the river powered a corn mill and a paper mill. By the 19th century, Lealholm was a self-sufficient farming village, with blacksmiths, cobblers, butchers, and other useful trades.
One of the village’s claim to fame is John Castillo, who styled himself “The Bard of the Dales.” His verses, often in local dialect, were published in collections such as ‘Old Isaac, The Steeplechase and Other Poems’ (1843) and ‘The Bard of the Dales or Poems of Miscellaneous Pieces’ (1850). For those unable to decipher his dialect, he helpfully included a glossary—because nothing says accessible poetry like needing a dictionary. Perhaps he had delved into the works of Robbie Burns, musing over the poet’s often incomprehensible words in the Scots dialect.
Born in 1792 to an Irish labourer and a local woman, John’s early life was marked by his father’s disappearance and grinding poverty. At age thirteen, he was shipped off to work as a servant, but by 1807 he returned to Eskdale and became a skilled stonemason. His work is scattered across the region, including decorative waymarkers and charming carved heads that resemble people he knew—one way to immortalise your neighbours, for better or worse.
Castillo abandoned his Catholic roots, embraced Methodism with zeal, and became a preacher and poet. He was apparently fond of jotting down poems during his work as a mason, stuffing scraps of paper into his hat until it overflowed.
Castillo died in 1845 and was buried in Pickering, where he had spent his later years. One of his poems, “Lines on Leaving Fryup, in Search of Work,” captures his sorrow at leaving Eskdale:
I’m sorry, Fryup! thee to leave,
But thou deniest what I crave,
Though I have ask’d with tears!
Oft I have drunk at thy pure rills,
And labour’d ‘mongst thy moorland hills,
For many toilsome years!
Sources
- ‘Poems in the Yorkshire Dialect’ John Castillo, edited by George Markham Tweddell (1878), available online at https://huddersfield.exposed/wiki/Poems_in_the_North_Yorkshire_Dialect_by_John_Castillo_(1878)_edited_by_George_Markham_Tweddell
- John Castillo. “Bard of the Dales” (1858), available online at https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=s5VNAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=John+Castillo++Bard+of+the+Dales&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjXter_7KPKAhUDzxQKHRoPB0UQ6AEIIjAB
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