The Dale Formerly Known As Golstandale

That clear felling on Nab End has certainly opened up Lonsdale. One minute there was a commercial plantation, the next it looks like a bad haircut.

Down below Percy Cross Rigg, the dale still plays its usual trick of looking peaceful. Green fields, quiet trees, the works. But scratch the surface and you find centuries of lords, monks and clerks arguing over what to call the place.

Back in the 12th century, Robert de Brus handed Gisborough Priory its foundation charter, and in it this valley turns up as Golstandale. Nobody could agree how to spell that either. Golsendale, Colstandale, Golstayndale, take your pick. By 1197 the priory records had settled, more or less, on … Lounesdale. A 1314 deed manages to use the two names in one breath, mentioning both the old cattle farm at Lounesdale and the ancient wood of Golstayndale, as if the scribe could not be bothered to choose sides.¹Rimington, F. C. “The Early Deer Parks of North-East Yorkshire (Continued).” THE TRANSACTIONS OF THE SCARBOROUGH  ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL SOCIETY. NUMBER 20. 1977.²TURTON, MAJOR R. B. “A Few Cleveland Place Names.” Pp 112 – 118. CLEVELAND NATURALISTS’ FIELD CLUB RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS 1928 TO 1932 VOL. IV. Part 2. 1932.  No. 85.

Roll on to the 16th century, and a fellow named Humberstone, surveying the Percy family’s Kildale estate, wrote it down as “Lawnesdale with Gowsmydale Ing“. Those meadows to the right of the beck were part of The Pale, one of the three grand enclosures where the Percies kept their deer for a spot of hunting, back when the gentry needed somewhere private to chase animals about.

Golstandale, Gowsmydale, Lonsdale, call it what you like. The names kept changing, but the dale just carried on being a dale, indifferent to the fuss.

• 1
  Rimington, F. C. “The Early Deer Parks of North-East Yorkshire (Continued).” THE TRANSACTIONS OF THE SCARBOROUGH  ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL SOCIETY. NUMBER 20. 1977. ↩︎
• 2
  TURTON, MAJOR R. B. “A Few Cleveland Place Names.” Pp 112 – 118. CLEVELAND NATURALISTS’ FIELD CLUB RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS 1928 TO 1932 VOL. IV. Part 2. 1932.  No. 85. ↩︎