The village-green of Bainbridge to the west is quite shut in with hills,
and in the centre are the stocks, or rather the stone supports minus the
most important part, with a rough rock seat which must have added
considerably to the victim's discomfort. The principal curiosity,
however, is the ancient custom prevailing here of blowing a horn at 10
p.m. during the summer months, to guide belated travellers on the moors.
This was an excellent provision for safety hundreds of years ago, when
Bainbridge was practically in the midst of a forest, and even in the
twentieth century may have its uses. The older horn, that was used
half a century ago, is now in Bolton Castle Museum. It is very large,
and curiously twisted. The houses at Bainbridge are of the ordinary ugly
Yorkshire type; but on high ground overlooking a ravine stands a nice
old gabled grange, which must have tempted many an artist and
photographer to pause upon their way to the famous Falls. These, of
course, are very fine, but to our mind far less beautiful than the
single plunge of water just below the grange, from a wide and
scooped-out bed of precipitous rock. Nor are the high, low, and middle
Falls of Aysgarth half so picturesque, though in a sense they are more
boisterous, like coppery boiling water.
Aysgarth church is perched up high, and you have to climb up many steps
to reach it from the moss-grown bridge. The doors of most of the
Yorkshire churches we found were kept unlocked; but this was an
exception, so down those steps we had to come, to go in search of a key;
but reaching the bottom of the flight, up we had to go again to try and
find the rectory. Oh! the time that may be lost in hunting for a church
key, and what a blessing it would be if notices were stuck up in the
porches to say where they were kept. The interior of Aysgarth has a new
appearance, but the splendid painted screen from Jervaulx (placed east
and west instead of across the chancel) is worth a hunt for the key.
Another screen, dated 1536, has upon it the grotesque carving of a
fool's head with long-eared cap. Here again in the village are the
stocks; but the Maypole, which once was its pride, long since has made
its exit.
[Illustration: RICHMOND.]
By far the nearest way to Richmond from Leyburn is across the moor, a
rough and desolate road, but preferable to the terrible long way by
Catterick, more than double the distance (by rail it is four times the
distance!). This is the prettiest village of any on the way (which is
not saying much, be it said). The early fifteenth-century church has
some good monuments and brasses, one of the latter to a lady who for
many years before she died carried her winding-sheet about with her; and
one would naturally suppose one with such gruesome ideas would still
walk the earth for the edification of the timid, but she doesn't.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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