Aireyholme: The Humble Launchpad of Empire’s Favourite Navigator

From the summit of Roseberry Topping, the Cleveland landscape performs its finest impression of timeless rural charm: undulating green fields stitched together by hedgerows, with Aireyholme Farm sitting unobtrusively in the middle like it’s been dropped there by a distracted cartographer. This was the patch of the country where the young James Cook grew up, his father working respectably as farm manager while the son no doubt stared out at this very view and dreamt of horizons a little less… parochial.

Closer at hand, the hill falls away sharply, a reminder that “scenic” usually comes with a risk of twisted ankles. Two hikers—mere specks from this height—navigate the rocky path with the sort of determination that suggests they, too, were promised a rewarding view at the top. Beyond them, the landscape flattens into a broad valley, the kind that artists like to call “sweeping,” while the sky above piles on drama with clouds clearly auditioning for a Romantic canvas.

Off to the left lies Easby Moor, marked by the monument to said Cook—erected long after he’d managed the minor feat of circling the globe a couple of times before meeting an end in the South Pacific that was both unfortunate and, to some, inevitable. Yorkshire may not have been able to keep him, but it certainly made sure no one forgot him.