A New View, a New Muddle

The recent clear felling of a block of forestry in Ayton Banks Wood has opened up a new view of Roseberry. The commercial timber has gone, leaving a few gangly birch trees to stand guard over the valley. It turns out that Gribdale Terrace, that isolated row of white cottages, has a history which is a bit of a muddle.

One academic maintains that these houses served ironstone miners at the Ayton Banks mine¹Marsh, Elizabeth Caroline. The Impact of the Decline of the Cleveland Ironstone Industry. 2022. University of York, PhD dissertation.. Other, local, voices say otherwise²“Gribdale Gate – Captain Cook, Great Ayton.” Captain Cook Great Ayton, https://www.captaincookgreatayton.com/locations/gribdale-gate/. They suggest that the terrace housed whinstone miners who dug up the hard volcanic rock to make setts to pave roads. It would seem that the 1919 Ordnance Survey mapmaker was not quite on the ball and mislabelled the mine³Ordnance Survey Six-inch England and Wales. Yorkshire Sheet XXIX.NW. Revised: 1913, Published: 1919. https://maps.nls.uk/view/100941974#zoom=5.0&lat=4013&lon=5881&layers=BT/. Tricking future historians.

Life in this isolated row was no bed of roses. The mine ran directly beneath the road behind the cottages, and it was not unknown for the ground to simply vanish into a great hole. There was one particular spot of bother when the earth began caving in near the sharp bend.

History can be very confusing. Experts disagree. Maps lie. It would seem that we cannot even agree on the mineral these men were extracting while their homes were literally sinking. 

• 1
  Marsh, Elizabeth Caroline. The Impact of the Decline of the Cleveland Ironstone Industry. 2022. University of York, PhD dissertation.
• 2
  “Gribdale Gate – Captain Cook, Great Ayton.” Captain Cook Great Ayton, https://www.captaincookgreatayton.com/locations/gribdale-gate/
• 3
  Ordnance Survey Six-inch England and Wales. Yorkshire Sheet XXIX.NW. Revised: 1913, Published: 1919. https://maps.nls.uk/view/100941974#zoom=5.0&lat=4013&lon=5881&layers=BT/