The sky was an unnervingly perfect shade of cerulean this morning, while overnight frost clung on stubbornly in the shadows. This is the view from Percy Rigg towards Coate Moor, the back of Captain Cook’s, the monument making a feeble attempt at visibility—you will need to squint or zoom in if you are truly desperate to see it.
The eastern end of the hill, labelled “The Pale” on Ordnance Survey maps, is a relic of one of the three medieval deer parks once owned by the Percy family, who ruled over the manor of Kildale1NYMNPA HER Records HER No: 4880 Pale End deer park. . The park boundaries were made of split logs and palings, which is how the name came about. The same type of fencing was used for defence around early settlements, giving rise to the phrase “beyond the pale”—a concept no doubt familiar to those with any sense of history or decorum.
Other medieval names litter the map. Warren Farm hints at the once vital supply of rabbit meat when other sources of food were scarce, and Percy Rigg speaks for itself. Those who have the patience to trawl through tithe maps and Estate Sale documents will find field names that whisper of past uses: Dove Leys and Dove Coat Field suggest a place where doves were reared to grace the nobleman’s table2Anthony, Cedric. “Glimpses of Kildale History”. Page 184. Geni Printing. 2012..
The landowning classes did not only concern themselves with birds and deer. Bee Close suggests the keeping of hives to satisfy their taste for honey. The manor also had fishponds, though these have long since been obliterated by floods—nature, as ever, proving indifferent to history. As for Duck Close, this could either refer to ducks or to a certain Matthew Duck, an unremarkable 17th-century tenant of Kildale. Either way, the name has endured, which is more than can be said for the fishponds3Ibid..
- 1NYMNPA HER Records HER No: 4880 Pale End deer park.
- 2Anthony, Cedric. “Glimpses of Kildale History”. Page 184. Geni Printing. 2012.
- 3Ibid.
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