As you reach the top of Jackson’s Bank, it is hard not to imagine that, at the turn of the last century, weary walkers resting upon these boulders were serenaded by the rather pastoral sounds of iron-laden trucks grinding, screeching, and clattering their way down that incline on the opposite side of Greenhow Botton. This incline, just under a mile long and now impressively scarred into the landscape, boasted an alarming gradient of 1 in 5. Down went racks of three trucks at a time, pulling up empty ones with a verve reaching 20 miles per hour—an act of thrilling boldness that took all of three minutes from top to bottom.
One can scarcely believe it, but over ten million tons of Rosedale iron ore careered down this incline in the name of British industry, all in a sixty-eight-year period of monumental exploitation. Wars, after all, do need armaments; Rosedale iron fed the monstrous appetite for steel from the Franco-Prussian War through to the First World War. But as it often goes, economic reality finally returned, and by the 1920s, iron prices had fallen, leaving the railway to close in 1929 and Greenhow Botton at last to the mercy of silence by 1931.
But today, I cannot help but wonder if any of those long-forgotten walkers paused to consider the identity of the elusive Jackson after whom this bank was named. If so, they would be as disappointed as I am, for Jackson appears to have left neither hide nor hair in the historical record, evidently determined to leave only his name on this steep hillside.
Jackson may have his bank, but it is the Public Bridleway up it that has claimed the name for itself. The Right of Way follows a medieval trod from Battersby to Farndale marked, so they say, here and there by well-worn stone flags. But where might this trod have led? Battersby and Farndale are hardly points of great consequence. Medieval Battersby claimed not one but two manors, one belonging to the Eures of Ingleby, the other the Percys of Kildale, and while the former may have fancied itself in want of a market, Kildale did have one. A destination perhaps for the trod. Doubtless though, weary medieval travellers paused on these same boulders, perhaps as appreciative of the view as we are today, perhaps contemplating the prospect of further exertions before reaching their unsung destination.
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