Ryston Nab

Ryston Nab, or Hanging Stone, overlooking Guisborough. A bit dreich on the tops, with rain and gale force winds.

Guisborough is a market town and civil parish in the Borough of Redcar and Cleveland. Even though it has been over half a century since it lost its Yorkshire association, for many folk, Guisborough will always be a town of the North Riding of Yorkshire.

The word ‘Riding‘, or ‘trithing‘ is a term used in Yorkshire to describe a division of the county. It originally meant a third part of something in the Saxon language. England was divided into counties by King Alfred, with each then divided into smaller parts called ‘hundreds‘, or ‘wapontakes‘. These were further divided into ‘tythings‘, ‘rapes‘, or ‘lathes‘, which were ruled by a ‘tythingman‘, who kept law and order so was akin, as it were, to a policeman.

A Riding then was the third part of the county and each was named after its location: so we had North, West and East Ridings. Yorkshire was the only county that retained this term Ridings with each Riding having its own Lieutenancy and Courts, but they were all accountable to the superior Courts held for the whole shire at York Castle. Under the Local Government Act of 1888, each Riding became a separate administrative county.

In 1968, the new county borough of Teesside was created and, in 1974, the North Riding authorities were abolished and Cleveland county formed, which lasted until 1996.