The Last Guidepost of Ingleby Moor

The North York Moors are scattered with standing stones. Silent, weather-beaten markers of human intent. Some once defined the edges of parishes or estates. Others reach much further back, into the medieval and even prehistoric past. Many still bear inscriptions: names, dates, and symbols carved into the rock, turning them into official signposts in a wild and often unforgiving landscape.

Travellers crossing the moors relied on such stones. In 1711, the Justices of the North Riding demanded that guideposts be raised at crossroads and trackways. Their task was simple but vital: to prevent travellers, not least the endless packhorse trains, from losing their way in the bleak expanse. The posts were little more than rough-hewn stone slabs. Yet upon them, masons cut the names of villages and towns, sometimes with a carved hand to point the way. Crude, but clear¹Handstones: guide-stoops on the North York Moors. https://www.yorkshiremilestones.co.uk/2020/09/05/handstones-guide-stoops-on-the-north-york-moors/ [Accessed 3 Sept 2025].

On Ingleby Moor, one such guidepost survives. It is scarred and worn by centuries of weather, yet still tells its story. One side reads “TO INGLEBY AND STOXLEY,” another “TO GUISBORO,” and a third “TO KIRBY AND HELMSLEY 1757.” Each inscription, accompanied by a pointing hand, a frozen gesture across the ages²NYMNPA HER Records No: 574 Way marker on Ingleby Moor.

Though now it stands about fifty metres from the modern track, this guidepost almost certainly lay along the ancient Thurkilsti, the drovers’ road leading south to Kirbymoorside. From here, one route descended Turkey Nab to Ingleby. Another led towards Kildale and on to Guisborough, suggesting a route that went to the east of Tidy Brown Hill. If so, that path has vanished without trace. Not even LIDAR, the technology that reveals what the eye cannot see, is able to uncover it. Whatever road once lay beneath the heather is gone.

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  Handstones: guide-stoops on the North York Moors. https://www.yorkshiremilestones.co.uk/2020/09/05/handstones-guide-stoops-on-the-north-york-moors/ [Accessed 3 Sept 2025]
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  NYMNPA HER Records No: 574 Way marker on Ingleby Moor