Fat Betty: The North York Moors’ Most Deceptively Named Landmark

Standing at the head of Rosedale, on the loneliest stretch of Danby Moor, sits a stone that has outlived every joke made about it, and at least one attempted burglary. Fat Betty is nothing grander than a squat wheelhead cross, its shaft long gone, its base whitewashed like a garden gnome given ideas above its station. In 1935, someone made off with her head¹Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer – 18 October 1935. THIS WORLD OF OURS. https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000687/19351018/280/0008²Cleveland Standard – 22 August 1936. Clevelander’s Diary. “Cleveland Crosses”. https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0003490/19360822/117/0005. It turned up in the heather a short walk away, and was fixed back down so firmly that nobody has managed to shift it since. Even a stone that has stood there since the 10th or 11th century, according to Historic England, is not above a spot of local mischief³NYMNP HER No:  3963. White Cross wayside cross and boundary marker, Fat Betty on Danby Moor ⁴White Cross (South). List Entry Number: 1178658. Historic England. https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1178658.

Nobody agrees on where the name came from. A lost nun, a farmer’s wife, a woman called Betty who may never have existed at all. Take your pick, because the moor will not settle the argument for you⁵Wilson, Carol M. “Westerdale: The origins and development of a medieval settlement”. North York Moors Association. 2013.⁶Fat Betty – Ancient Cross in England in Yorkshire (North). The Megalithic Portal. https://www.megalithic.co.uk/article.php?sid=1132403938.

What people mostly agree on now is coins. Visitors leave them wedged on top of the base, and photographs prove it happens⁷White Cross Danby Moor. Coast to Coast Walk in England. https://www.coasttocoast.uk/north-york-moors/lion-inn-grosmont/white-cross/. But older newspaper reports tell a different story. The genuine, long-standing custom of leaving coppers for poor travellers belonged to nearby Young Ralph’s Cross, which has an actual hollow carved out for the purpose, used for generations. Fat Betty had no such hollow and no such history. Somewhere along the way, one habit seems to have wandered over to the wrong stone, the way gossip does in small places.

• 1
  Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer – 18 October 1935. THIS WORLD OF OURS. https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000687/19351018/280/0008
• 2
  Cleveland Standard – 22 August 1936. Clevelander’s Diary. “Cleveland Crosses”. https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0003490/19360822/117/0005
• 3
  NYMNP HER No:  3963. White Cross wayside cross and boundary marker, Fat Betty on Danby Moor
• 4
  White Cross (South). List Entry Number: 1178658. Historic England. https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1178658
• 5
  Wilson, Carol M. “Westerdale: The origins and development of a medieval settlement”. North York Moors Association. 2013.
• 6
  Fat Betty – Ancient Cross in England in Yorkshire (North). The Megalithic Portal. https://www.megalithic.co.uk/article.php?sid=1132403938
• 7
  White Cross Danby Moor. Coast to Coast Walk in England. https://www.coasttocoast.uk/north-york-moors/lion-inn-grosmont/white-cross/