Smugglers of the North York Moors

For some inexplicable reason, I find myself riveted by this ruined barn overlooking above the Esk Valley railway. I have taken to photographing it with a slavish devotion, each time I pass, but usually something with more interest has turned up.

This barn, apparently, is recorded on the North York Moors historical monuments database, albeit only with the vague dignity of a “Post Medieval” label. This gives it the broadest of dates, a hazy nod to anything from 1540 to 1901.¹NYMNPA HER Record No: 10611 Monument Type: BARN Period Start: POST MEDIEVAL (1540 to 1901) 


Of course, the imagination takes over where the facts leave off. In my more whimsical moments, I picture the barn’s stones—mute and indifferent as they are—observing the bawdy dramas of a fraternity of smugglers, swaggering inland with their contraband in the late 18th-century.

An old newspaper clipping from 1908 chronicles such a smugglers’ route, tracing it in prose as dogged as any Customs officer. My understanding of this path starts from White Cross, crossing the moor, passing near Commondale station into some forgotten patch of land dubbed Sowley’s Intake, then crossing Commondale Beck beside a derelict establishment named the Diving Duck (formerly Bleach Mill Farm). From there, it climbs to Westgate Farm and Kildale Moor, and, some two miles later, drops to Baysdale Beck, about 300 yards above the Hob Hole ford. A bridge once spanned the beck here, indicated by two close-set stone posts, suggesting the passage of nothing larger than a heavily-laden donkey.²A Smugglers’ Retreat. | Whitby Gazette | Friday 24 January 1908 | British Newspaper Archive’. 2022. Britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk <https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001103/19080124/045/0003> [accessed 27 September 2022]

The route presses onwards and upwards, half a mile or so further, to a ruin and enclosure on Baysdale Moor, now covered by heather, as if to shake off any association with sordid smuggling. Gin Garth, it is called, a suitably scandalous name, and legend insists it served as a cache for the smugglers’ ill-gotten goods. I imagine a band of them unloading their barrels of spirits with a practiced indifference. This enclosure and the ruin, are now as innocuous as any other forgotten corner of the moor, but in my mind’s eye, I imagine them alive with the furtive whispers and quick footsteps of these intrepid lawbreakers.

There is an undeniable romance in contemplating the daredevil activities of these robust smuggling gangs, while staring at an old barn with nought but “Post Medieval” stamped upon it.

• 1
  NYMNPA HER Record No: 10611 Monument Type: BARN Period Start: POST MEDIEVAL (1540 to 1901) 

• 2
  A Smugglers’ Retreat. | Whitby Gazette | Friday 24 January 1908 | British Newspaper Archive’. 2022. Britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk <https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001103/19080124/045/0003> [accessed 27 September 2022]