Northwards from Newton lies the minute moorland hamlet of Stape, its houses and its inn, “The Hare and Hounds,” being perched indiscriminately on the heather.  Some miles beyond lies Goathland, that formerly belonged to the parish of Pickering.  The present church was built in 1895, but it is here that the fine pre-Reformation chalice that originally belonged to Pickering is still in use.  The village has a large green overlooked here and there by pretty cottages, and the proximity of the richly coloured moorland scenery that lies spread out in every direction makes the place particularly fascinating.  The railway in the valley has brought a few new houses to the village, but there seems little chance of any great accretions of this nature, although the existence of the railway station is a permanent menace to the rural character of the place.

Middleton, the hamlet immediately to the west of Pickering, lies along the main road to Helmsley.  Its interesting old church is surrounded by trees, and might almost be passed unnoticed.  The post-office is in one of the oldest cottages.  Its massive oak forks must have endured for many centuries, and the framework of the doorway leading into the garden behind must be of almost equal antiquity.

Between the years 1764 and 1766, John Wesley, on his northern circuit, visited this unassuming little village and preached in the pulpit of the parish church.  A circular sun-dial bearing the motto “We stay not,” and the date 1782, appears above the porch, and the church is entered by a fine old door of the Perpendicular period.  A paddock on the west side of the graveyard is known as the nun’s field, but I have no knowledge of any monastic institution having existed at Middleton.  Aislaby, the next village to the west, is so close that one seems hardly to have left Middleton before one reaches the first cottage of the next hamlet.  There is no church here, and the only conspicuous object as one passes westwards is the Hall, a large stone house standing close to the road on the south side.  Wrelton is only half a mile from Aislaby.  It stands at the cross-roads where the turning to Lastingham and Rosedale Abbey leaves the Helmsley Road.  The cottages are not particularly ancient, and there are no striking features to impress themselves on the memory of the passer-by.  At Sinnington, however, we reach a village of marked individuality.  The broad green is ornamented with a bridge that spans the wide stony course of the river Seven; but more noticeable than this is the very tall maypole that stands on the green and appears in the distance as a tapering mast that has been sloped out of perpendicular by the most prevailing winds.  It was around an earlier maypole that stood in the place of the existing one that the scene between the “Broad Brims” and the merry-making villagers that has already been mentioned took place nearly two centuries ago.  The present maypole was erected on May 29th 1882,