An old holloway up Carlton Bank

I tried to use a little used Public Footpath which loops around from the foot of Carlton Bank to the now demolished Underhill House¹Ordnance Survey National Grid Maps, 1940s-1970. NZ50SW – A (includes: Bilsdale Midcable; Broughton; Carlton; Faceby; Great Busby… Available online at: https://maps.nls.uk/view/188154498#zoom=7&lat=6663&lon=2830&layers=BT [Accessed 22 Apr. 2022]..

But I became distracted by a mountain bike track and ending zig-zagging up through the trees eventually coming across an old holloway, well above the present road. Overgrown by gorse, it must be of some age as it doesn’t appear on the earliest Ordnance Survey maps.

It is tempting to assume the holloway was made by quarrymen sledding their stones to the village below but alum-workers and turf cutters could equally have been responsible.

Today, Carlton Bank is a notorious climb on a bike but benefitting from a tarmac surface. It has had many names. The gentle slope as it leaves Carlton village has been known at various times as ‘T’ Bank Lonnin‘, ‘Alum House Lane‘, or ‘Peak Lonnin‘²Carlton-In-Cleveland To Scugdale, Swainby, and Castleton. | Northern Weekly Gazette | Saturday 04 August 1906 | British Newspaper Archive. [online] Available at: https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0003075/19060804/075/0012 [Accessed 5 Apr. 2022]..

When the gradient steepens it becomes ‘Butter Hill‘ — “so-called on account of its spongy character” — and cresting the summit, the ‘Red Shale Road‘ or ‘Moor Yat‘. The former because of the use of reddish alum shale as a road surface and, the latter, because it eventually leads to ‘Chop Yat‘, an old name for Chop Gate³Ibid..

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  Ordnance Survey National Grid Maps, 1940s-1970. NZ50SW – A (includes: Bilsdale Midcable; Broughton; Carlton; Faceby; Great Busby… Available online at: https://maps.nls.uk/view/188154498#zoom=7&lat=6663&lon=2830&layers=BT [Accessed 22 Apr. 2022].
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  Carlton-In-Cleveland To Scugdale, Swainby, and Castleton. | Northern Weekly Gazette | Saturday 04 August 1906 | British Newspaper Archive. [online] Available at: https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0003075/19060804/075/0012 [Accessed 5 Apr. 2022].
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  Ibid.