Because It’s There: Tourists on Roseberry

Another day, another climb up Roseberry. I often wonder when someone first made the effort simply for the sake of it—“because it’s there,” as Mallory said of a rather taller peak. When did the first tourists arrive? And what exactly counts as a tourist?

With its sharp outline and looming bulk, Roseberry Topping has always drawn the eye and probably always drawn people. Prehistoric communities may well have seen it as sacred. Roman soldiers marched through Cleveland, and some must have taken the short detour to the top. Prince Oswy came with his mother, it is said, so the hill was evidently known well before the modern age. A Cottonian manuscript, probably written in the early 1600s, describes visitors to the hill.

Daniel Defoe, indefatigable and thorough, knew the hill. In the third volume of A Tour through the Whole Island of Great Britain (1726), he claimed to see the Cheviot from the summit of “Rosemary-Top,” though he wrongly placed it in the East Riding and mentioned it while writing about south-west Scotland. Still, he knew the hill¹A tour thro’ the whole island of Great Britain. Divided into circuites or journeys. Giving a particular and entertaining accout of Whatever is curious and worth observation; … 1748: Volume 3. https://archive.org/details/bim_eighteenth-century_a-tour-thro-the-whole-i_defoe-daniel_1748_3. And it is difficult to believe that a young James Cook, living below it at Aireyholme Farm, never climbed it.

By 1802, John Graves in his History of Cleveland refers directly to a group of tourists²Graves, John. “The History of Cleveland, in the North Riding of the County of York”. 1808. But the real surge came later. The railways opened up the area, and with them came guidebooks and maps—tools that turned casual visitors into proper tourists. The latter half of the 19th century gave people both the means and the information.

This quarry on the southern face was active in the early 1800s, providing sandstone. The stone was probably sled down along what is now the Public Bridleway. Curiously, the bridleway ends just at the lip of the quarry, contours the slope, and then drops to the col. It never quite reaches the summit. Perhaps it was too risky for horses to share the same space on the rocky final stretch. Perhaps riders dismounted and left them tethered here while they climbed the last twenty metres on foot. But that, of course, is only my guess.

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  A tour thro’ the whole island of Great Britain. Divided into circuites or journeys. Giving a particular and entertaining accout of Whatever is curious and worth observation; … 1748: Volume 3. https://archive.org/details/bim_eighteenth-century_a-tour-thro-the-whole-i_defoe-daniel_1748_3
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  Graves, John. “The History of Cleveland, in the North Riding of the County of York”. 1808