The Beck, the Inn, and the Blizzard: Histories of Slape Stones

I quite like this photo. It captures the sweeping valley of Slape Stones Beck, leading—predictably enough—to the hamlet of Slape Stones. The scene positively drips with tranquillity, and after the boisterous festive season perhaps a reminder to pause and simply be. How very profound.

The name Slape Stones, unlike the beck, has fallen out of fashion. It once referred to a hamlet at a ford, much like Slapewath near Guisborough, conjuring the delightful image of a treacherous crossing over slippery rock before the advent of the modern culvert¹Ordnance Survey 6” map, Yorkshire Sheet 57, Published: 1857 https://maps.nls.uk/view/102344344#zoom=5.9&lat=6356&lon=2966&layers=BT. The Ordnance Survey map, in its infinite wisdom, now calls this place Chequers, after the drovers’ inn that has since become a private residence. The inn sign, featuring a chessboard, hinted at its past life as a money-changer’s haunt. The innkeeper was evidently a philosopher too, including in his sign this gem, now preserved on the outside wall behind glass:

Be not in haste,
Come in and taste,
Good ale to-morrow for nothing.

Naturally, tomorrow never comes.

The inn, once run by the same family for a century, boasted it kept its fire burning continuously for all that time. Presumably, modern heating has since extinguished that tradition, much like the spirit of old inns everywhere.

Yet this serene spot hides a grim tale. That slight rise in the skyline on the right, Miley Pike, marks the old route over into Ryedale, long before the convenience of the Square Corner tarmacadam. On 7 December 1882, tragedy struck. John Bowes, a farmer from Snilesworth, ventured into a snowstorm to find his stranded farmhand, Garbutt, who he had sent to Osmotherley for corn. They met up at Slape Stones where Garbut had sought refuge. Together they faced the storm all night, making little progress. At dawn, another farmer, Charles Mintoft spotted a man on the moor, shouting “Lost!” before collapsing. Garbutt was barely alive but managed to reveal Bowes’s fate. Following Garbutt’s tracks in the snow, Mintoft found Bowes’s body just two miles from his home, his loyal dog by his side. Dead for hours, he might have taken Garbutt with him had Mintoft not come along.²“SAD DEATH ON THE YORKSHIRE MOORS.” Hartlepool Northern Daily Mail – 14 December 1882 https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000376/18821214/110/0003

So much for tranquil landscapes; they rarely tell the whole story.

• 1
  Ordnance Survey 6” map, Yorkshire Sheet 57, Published: 1857 https://maps.nls.uk/view/102344344#zoom=5.9&lat=6356&lon=2966&layers=BT
• 2
  “SAD DEATH ON THE YORKSHIRE MOORS.” Hartlepool Northern Daily Mail – 14 December 1882 https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000376/18821214/110/0003