A Riot of Purple, and a Man with No Clothes

A fine display of blooming heather around Captain Cook’s Monument, on a moor left unmanaged for grouse shooting.

Here is a strange tale I have come across. In November 1856, the York Herald reported that a fine young man, plainly out of his senses, had been found near Lockwood Beck on the Whitby road. He was stark naked. Someone secured him quickly and found him shelter.¹Discovery of a Naked Lunatic. York Herald. 8 November 1856.

By the end of the day he had been recognised as a servant working for a Mr Napier of Mulgrave, near Whitby. The next day he was taken home, where his employer said he had vanished from his post ten days before and had not been seen since. Then comes the odd bit. His clothes were found at Captain Cook’s Monument. He had walked several miles across open moor with not a stitch on him, and nobody could say how long he had gone without them.

From the Monument to Lockwood Beck is barely six miles as the crow flies. Modern mapping puts the best walking route at nine. Not a bad effort for a man in the buff, in November, with winter nights closing in fast.

What became of our naked rambler afterwards, I have not been able to discover.

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  Discovery of a Naked Lunatic. York Herald. 8 November 1856. ↩︎