Out & About …

… on the North York Moors, or wherever I happen to be.

Tis the season for burning

The annual burning of the heather moorland has begun — to the left of the house on the hill, up Badger Gill. Several of the tell-tale plumes could be seen on the way over into Bransdale.

The house is Smout House, a mid-19th century farmstead, although until the 1952 edition of the O.S. map, the farmstead was mapped as Loft House. The 1892 O.S. 25 inch map shows an extensive range of buildings1‘View Map: Yorkshire LVIII.7 (Bilsdale Midcable; Bransdale; Pockley) – Ordnance Survey 25 Inch England and Wales, 1841-1952’. 2023. Maps.nls.uk <https://maps.nls.uk/view/125627182#zoom=5&lat=6737&lon=15401&layers=BT> [accessed 19 January 2023].

In the late 1700s, Loft House farm passed through either sale or marriage to Isaac Scarth and his son, John. By 1814, Isaac and John had passed it on to their respective grandsons, who were also called Isaac and John. According to the 1848 tithe map, each of them held a share of just over 30 acres. It is believed that this division of land was the impetus for the building of Smout House and its corresponding outbuildings during the mid 19th century, providing each brother with their own independent farm. In the 1950s, Smout House and the entire Loft House complex was sold to the Feversham estate, with Smout House as the sole remaining domestic building2‘MNA143763 | National Trust Heritage Records’. 2015. Nationaltrust.org.uk <https://heritagerecords.nationaltrust.org.uk/HBSMR/MonRecord.aspx?uid=MNA143763> [accessed 19 January 2023].

I do keep coming across the names Issac and John Scarth, see here and here.

Why ‘Smout’?

A smout, according to one 19th-century dictionary is “an opening in a wall big enough to allow the passage of a sheep3Halliwell-Phillipps, James Orchard. “A Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, Obsolete Phrases, Proverbs, and Ancient Customs, from the Fourteenth Century”. United Kingdom, C. & J. Adlard, Bartholomew Close. Page 372. 1852.. The Rev. Canon Atkinson uses it in this respect in his ‘Forty years in a moorland parish4Atkinson, Rev. J. C. “Forty years in a moorland parish; reminiscences and researches in Danby in Cleveland” Page 84/5. 1891.

The same 19th-century dictionary also defines smout as “A narrow passage between houses ; a cul-de-sac ; a covered alley5Halliwell-Phillipps, James Orchard. “A Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, Obsolete Phrases, Proverbs, and Ancient Customs, from the Fourteenth Century”. United Kingdom, C. & J. Adlard, Bartholomew Close. Page 559. 1852. .

I can see where it’s coming from but another definitions is “To work by-work, when out of constant employment6Ibid. Page 763.

And yet another dictionary explains smout as “The fry of salmon”7“The English Dialect Dictionary, Being the Complete Vocabulary of All Dialect Words Still in Use, or Known to Have Been in Use during the Last Two Hundred Years; Founded on the Publications of the English Dialect Society and on a Large Amount of Material Never before Printed”. In six volumes edited by Joseph Wright, 1898. Volume V. R to S. Page 561. Internet Archive, 2014, https://archive.org/details/englishdialectdi05wriguoft. Accessed 10 Apr. 2021.. Somehow I don’t think salmon have ever got up into Bransdale.

Well, you pays your money …

  • 1
    ‘View Map: Yorkshire LVIII.7 (Bilsdale Midcable; Bransdale; Pockley) – Ordnance Survey 25 Inch England and Wales, 1841-1952’. 2023. Maps.nls.uk <https://maps.nls.uk/view/125627182#zoom=5&lat=6737&lon=15401&layers=BT> [accessed 19 January 2023]
  • 2
    ‘MNA143763 | National Trust Heritage Records’. 2015. Nationaltrust.org.uk <https://heritagerecords.nationaltrust.org.uk/HBSMR/MonRecord.aspx?uid=MNA143763> [accessed 19 January 2023]
  • 3
    Halliwell-Phillipps, James Orchard. “A Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, Obsolete Phrases, Proverbs, and Ancient Customs, from the Fourteenth Century”. United Kingdom, C. & J. Adlard, Bartholomew Close. Page 372. 1852.
  • 4
    Atkinson, Rev. J. C. “Forty years in a moorland parish; reminiscences and researches in Danby in Cleveland” Page 84/5. 1891
  • 5
    Halliwell-Phillipps, James Orchard. “A Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, Obsolete Phrases, Proverbs, and Ancient Customs, from the Fourteenth Century”. United Kingdom, C. & J. Adlard, Bartholomew Close. Page 559. 1852.
  • 6
    Ibid. Page 763.
  • 7
    “The English Dialect Dictionary, Being the Complete Vocabulary of All Dialect Words Still in Use, or Known to Have Been in Use during the Last Two Hundred Years; Founded on the Publications of the English Dialect Society and on a Large Amount of Material Never before Printed”. In six volumes edited by Joseph Wright, 1898. Volume V. R to S. Page 561. Internet Archive, 2014, https://archive.org/details/englishdialectdi05wriguoft. Accessed 10 Apr. 2021.

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