Urra: What’s in a Name?

Urra. A name that sounds as if the wind itself whispered it across the moor. Once, according to Richard Blakeborough, this lonely hamlet in upper Bilsdale had a blacksmith and an inn – the twin hearts of any small community¹Passim: Elfi The Dwarf — The Story Told at Ye Sign of the Fox & Hounds, Urra. http://www.fhithich.uk/elfi-the-dwarf-the-story-told-at-ye-sign-of-the-fox-hounds-urra/²Passim: THE WITCH-MARE OF ORRA [URRA]. http://www.fhithich.uk/the-witch-mare-of-orra-urra/. Now it is little more than a name on a map, clinging to the edge of the North York Moors.

Its origins are murky, and scholars do love a good argument about a mystery. Some say the name comes from the Norse “haugr” – meaning hill – which would make sense given the vast, bleak mass of Urra Moor looming at 454 metres above sea level. It is the highest point of the North York Moors, a place where the sky seems closer than the ground. But then one wonders: did the settlement name the hill, or did the hill lend its name to the settlement? Man of course has been around since the earliest times.

Evidence of prehistoric life lies scattered across this windswept height – cairns, flint arrowheads, fragments of a people who lived and died here long before written history. To stand on Urra Moor is to feel their presence in the stones and the silence.

Others claim the name has darker roots, from the Old English for dirty – “horheht”, “horhig”, or “horuweg”. Perhaps not an insult, but a reflection of the place itself: raw, bleak, and weather-beaten. Try saying those old words aloud, swallowing the consonants, and you can almost hear the rasp of wind over stone³A to Z: a variety of Us and Vs. The official blog for the North York Moors National Park. Posted on 05/05/2020. https://northyorkmoorsnationalpark.wordpress.com/2020/05/05/a-to-z-a-variety-of-us-and-vs/.

Whatever its meaning, Urra remains what it has always been – a fragment of human tenacity set against an uncompromising landscape.

• 1
  Passim: Elfi The Dwarf — The Story Told at Ye Sign of the Fox & Hounds, Urra. http://www.fhithich.uk/elfi-the-dwarf-the-story-told-at-ye-sign-of-the-fox-hounds-urra/
• 2
  Passim: THE WITCH-MARE OF ORRA [URRA]. http://www.fhithich.uk/the-witch-mare-of-orra-urra/
• 3
  A to Z: a variety of Us and Vs. The official blog for the North York Moors National Park. Posted on 05/05/2020. https://northyorkmoorsnationalpark.wordpress.com/2020/05/05/a-to-z-a-variety-of-us-and-vs/