Hardly a week goes by without news of some historical document being digitised. Recently, a diary of a lady named Jane Ewbank who lived in York during the time of the Napoleonic Wars has been published1Science X. 2023. ‘Spotlight Thrown on Diary of York Woman from 1800s’, Phys.org (Phys.org) <https://phys.org/news/2023-06-spotlight-thrown-diary-york-woman.html> [accessed 1 September 2023].
Jane was born in 1778, and her father, George Ewbank, was a well-known druggist and banker in York. He had his shop on Castlegate in the city centre. Jane didn’t live long, passing away at 46 in 1824.
The diary has about 34,000 words written between 1803 and 1805. It talks about Jane’s life in York and her travels in the Lake District and North Yorkshire. It’s a unique look at what life was like for a woman in York in the first decade of the 1800s.
I haven’t finished reading it all, but I found this entry from 1st September 1804 interesting. And appropriate, as it happened on this day. It’s about Jane’s journey with her mother from York to Whitby. It must’ve been quite a trip, taking about nine hours, likely on a horse and carriage. From Pickering, they would’ve followed the same route as the modern A169 road. The Whitby and Pickering Railway wouldn’t be built for another 32 years.
(Sept. 1st Saturday). At 8 o’clock my mother & I set off for Woodlands [just south of Aislaby]. The road as far as Whitwell flat & uninteresting, near that place the scene improves, & at Croambeck [Crambeck] bridge it is beautiful. After we passed Pickering the country is wild & desolate, & what would be generally called insipid & ugly, but I confess such scenes are not without their charms for me. This wide tract of uncultivated lane with its deep Vallies & swelling knolls seem’d to me to speak a present Deity more than the more fertile fields. That Man should earn his bread by the sweat of his brow, is necessary to his real good, & accordingly the Almighty has given him lands to Labour, & fields to cultivate; but that the majesty of the Almighty may not be overlooked by Man when he finds the ground became productive under his hands, it also happens that what it gains in profit it loses in grandeur, & touched by Man seems from that moment to partake more or less of his littleness.
As we approached within a few miles of Whitby we gain’d an extensive view of the sea; which I enjoyed perhaps the more as it was unexpected. At about 5 we arrived at Woodlands. My cousin George, & Miss Judy Williamson were with Mrs Withers. After tea we walk’d in Mrs Withers’s grounds which are singularly romantic & picturesque; I never saw a piece of ground consist so entirely of hill & dale; scarce can you find a few yards of level ground; & as the risings are very steep & abrupt; it makes it no idle saunter for us Yorkites to traverse these grounds. However in this circumstance greatly consists their beauty, but not it also greatly consists in others; rich wood, both great and small, richly clothes these hills & vallies, & the river Esk runs with many a winding at the thro’ banks, steep, high & fantastically varied.
Today’s photo was taken on Great Ayton Moor. The heather still looks good. I’m surprised that Jane didn’t mention the swathes of the purple blooms in her account.
- 1Science X. 2023. ‘Spotlight Thrown on Diary of York Woman from 1800s’, Phys.org (Phys.org) <https://phys.org/news/2023-06-spotlight-thrown-diary-york-woman.html> [accessed 1 September 2023]
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