Besides the original name of Whitcliffe Scar, this remarkable view-point has, since 1606, been popularly known as ‘Willance’s Leap.’ In that year a certain Robert Willance, whose father appears to have been a successful draper in Richmond, was hunting in the neighbourhood, when he found himself enveloped in a fog. It must have been sufficiently dense to shut out even the nearest objects; for, without any warning, Willance found himself on the verge of the scar, and before he could check his horse both were precipitated over the cliff. We have no detailed account of whether the fall was broken in any way; but, although his horse was killed instantly, Willance, by some almost miraculous good fortune, found himself alive at the bottom with nothing worse than a broken leg. Such a story must have been the talk of the whole of the Dale Country for months after the event, and it is in no way surprising that the spot should have become permanently associated with the rider’s name. He certainly felt grateful for his astonishing escape, despite the amputation of the broken limb; for, besides the erection of some inscribed stones that still mark the position of his fall from the cliff, Willance, in order to further commemorate the event, presented the Corporation of Richmond with a silver cup, which remains in the possession of the town. Turning back towards Richmond, the contrast of the gently-rounded contours and the rich cultivation gives the landscape the appearance of a vast garden. One can see the great Norman keep of the castle dwarfing the church towers, and the red-roofed houses that cluster so picturesquely under its shelter. The afternoon sunlight floods everything with its generous glow, and the shadows of the trees massed on the hill-slopes are singularly blue. At the bottom of the valley the Swale abandons its green meadows for a time, and disappears into the deep and leafy gorge that adds so much to the charm of Richmond. Beyond the town the course of the river can be traced as it takes its way past Easby Abbey and the sunny slopes crowned with woods that go down on either side to its sparkling waters, until the level plain confuses every feature in a maze of hedgerow and coppice that loses itself in the hazy horizon.