Mauley Cross, that modest monument to the caprices of the de Mauley family, likely served as a marker of their grazing rights1‘Mulgrave Castle’, Wikipedia (Wikimedia Foundation) <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulgrave_Castle> [accessed 22 January 2024] or, if we are to believe the National Park’s heritage record, a humble wayside guide for those wandering the moors.2NYM NP HER No: 4434 Mauley Cross It could, of course, have been both, though neither role saved it from its current fate—buried, as it is, beneath a regiment of commercial trees, whose growth has thoroughly blotted out any memory of what the landscape once was. One might now wonder if there was ever a time before the trees, or indeed if Mauley Cross was erected in anticipation of a future market for timber.
This is a lovely cross, a proper cross with an extant patibulum, that was erected along what was once a bustling prehistoric highway. Assemblages of Mesolithic flints, scattered about the area like breadcrumbs, suggest it was once a prime venue for all the necessary social intricacies of the day—marriages, peace treaties, and no doubt, some solemn if tedious rituals. One can almost hear the exchange of bartered goods and grunted promises echoing through the ages, or perhaps more importantly, sense the great relief of those engaged in these interminable negotiations when they were over. The later arrival of the “Roman road“and Mauley barons, ever eager to impose themselves on an already well-trodden path, only cemented the area’s status as a place to be passed through, preferably quickly.3NYM NP HER No: 10371 Lithic scatters at Mauley Cross/Pickering Moor
However, as history marched on, and our appetite hungered for the ravenous taste of knowledge, the area’s fame took a darker turn. Enter Willie Eddon, a sprightly 95-year-old who in his dotage lived nearby. However he spent his youth, and earned a crust or two, carting bodies—human ones—from Pickering to Hull. In those halcyon days of body-snatching, Willie found himself in a curious line of work, collecting corpses left conveniently on churchyard walls and delivering them to the less-than-scrupulous hands of doctors and medical students. These fine professionals, with their insatiable thirst for knowledge (and, apparently, a shortage of ethics), relied on Willie to transport the dearly departed across the countryside.4Report on a lecture before the Yorkshire Archaeological Society entitled “THE ANTIQUITIES OF GOATHLAND.” Whitby Gazette – 18 March 1910 https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001103/19100318/282/0015?noTouch=true
Despite armed guards patrolling graveyards, eager to shoot anyone foolish enough to enter after dark, Willie, with admirable cunning, avoided being caught. Whether this was due to skill or sheer luck is anyone’s guess, but one must admire his ability to navigate both the legal and anatomical pitfalls of the profession. Mauley Cross, standing forlorn in silent witness, would no doubt have appreciated the irony: a once-sacred spot now overshadowed by forestry and the graver doings of Regency enterprise.
- 1‘Mulgrave Castle’, Wikipedia (Wikimedia Foundation) <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulgrave_Castle> [accessed 22 January 2024]
- 2NYM NP HER No: 4434 Mauley Cross
- 3NYM NP HER No: 10371 Lithic scatters at Mauley Cross/Pickering Moor
- 4Report on a lecture before the Yorkshire Archaeological Society entitled “THE ANTIQUITIES OF GOATHLAND.” Whitby Gazette – 18 March 1910 https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001103/19100318/282/0015?noTouch=true
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