Hambleton Street

I find this track, between Sneck Yate with Square Corner, to be one of most tedious on the North York Moors. It follows the old drovers’ route between Scotland and the south of England. The term ‘street’ may suggest a Roman origin but although the Romans may well have used it (there have been Roman finds at both the northern and southern ends of its crossing of the moors) it was certainly never a paved military road. It was from the later Middle Ages when cattle began to be raised in the north and driven to the markets in the south that the road began to be documented. The trade reached its peak in the early 19th century when it was curtailed by the growth of the railways. Drovers generally did 9 to 12 miles per day but needed pasture or stances where the 100 to 300 head of cattle could graze for a few days before continuing their journey south. The Limekiln House inn was one such resting place where the cattle could graze on the lush grasses of the limestone pasture and the inn provided for the needs of the drovers. A few humps and bumps about 300 metres distant are all that remain of this inn which closed its doors in 1897.