Out & About …

… on the North York Moors, or wherever I happen to be.

A scenic, wide-angle shot of a lush, green landscape with rolling hills and fields under a cloudy sky. In the foreground, there are thick shrubs and bracken, while the middle ground reveals a mix of cultivated fields, patches of forest, and a few scattered buildings. To the left of the centre, a distinctive small hill rises from the landscape. In the distance, the landscape flattens out, with what appears to be a town or industrial area on the horizon.

From Cliverick to Cliff Rigg: A Ridge of Hunts and Quarries

From the eminence of Cockshaw Hill, the eye is drawn across Gribdale Terrace to the hill that stands proud above the Cleveland plain. Today it is marked on the map as Cliff Rigg, but for centuries the locals knew it as Cliverick.

Ralph Jackson, an eighteenth-century landowner with a taste for the hunt, noted in his diary that he “walked two hours before dinner” and went “afox Hunting” on Cliverick1Ralph Jackson’s diary (Book Q). Normanby, January 1778 – March 1780. JULY 1779. “Friday the Sixteenth;”greataytonhistory.co.ukhttps://greataytonhistory.co.ukPDFJanuary, 1778; Normanby, Thursday (Page 1, the First; Bro2Ralph Jackson’s diary (Book R). Great Ayton/Normanby, April 1780 – July 1782. JANUARY 1781. “Tuesday the Sixteenth;” greataytonhistory.co.ukhttps://greataytonhistory.co.ukPDFRalph Jackson’s diary (Book R). Great Ayton/Normanby, April 1780 …. The Ordnance Survey men later wrote it down as Cliff Rigg, perhaps hearing the name through ears less tuned to North Yorkshire speech.

Sir Alfred Edward Pease (centre) flanked by Kermit Roosevelt (left) and former President Theodore Roosevelt in the Athi Plains, 1909.
Pease (centre) flanked by former US President Theodore Roosevelt (right) and his son Kermit, 1909.

By the nineteenth century, the ridge had caught the attention of Sir Alfred Pease, country squire, politician, and indefatigable hunter of beasts both foreign and local. A photograph shows him standing with Theodore Roosevelt over the carcass of a lion, a testament to his global appetite for sport. Closer to home, he hunted foxes with the Cleveland Hounds and wrote of galloping through Cliverick Wood, sometimes shortening the name to “Liverick.”3Pease, A. E. “THE CLEVELAND HOUNDS AS A TRENCHER-FED PACK.” Page 45, 147, 166. LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 1887.

The newspapers of the day are littered with tales of the hunt: foxes vanishing into Cliverick Quarries, hounds crashing through the undergrowth, riders in full cry4Field – 16 April 1898. A DAY ON THE MOORS WITH THE CLEVELAND. https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0002446/18980416/242/00345Daily Gazette for Middlesbrough – 19 November 1898. https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000159/18981119/013/0003.

The wood itself provided its own dramas. In 1861, a tailor and a bricklayer were fined fifteen shillings each for trespassing there in search of game, while in the same year three hundred oaks, together with ash and larch, were sold off at auction6Stockton Herald, South Durham and Cleveland Advertiser – 03 May 1861. STOKESLEY POLICE NEWS. https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0002975/18610503/051/00037York Herald – 20 April 1861. SALE OF VALUABLE TIMBER, AT LIVERICK WOOD. https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000499/18610420/002/0001.

Not long after, Leeds Corporation arrived with bigger ambitions. The ridge was quarried for whinstone, its hard rock hewn into setts to pave the city’s streets. What had been Cliverick, familiar in name and shape for generations, was reshaped in stone and carted away, leaving the ridge we see today.

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