[Footnote 2:  R.B.  Cunninghame Graham, “Hernando de Soto.”]

May the venture to compass these ends succeed, to use an old saying, “ez sartin ez t’ thorn-bush."[1]

[Footnote 1:  It used to be the custom for the parson to collect the tithe by placing a branch of thorn in every tenth stook; he choosing the stooks and sending his cart along for them.  R. Blakeborough, “Yorkshire Humour and Customs.”]

E.W.D.

The Vicarage, Pickering.

25th September 1904.

THE EVOLUTION

OF AN

ENGLISH TOWN

CHAPTER I

Concerning those which follow

  “Brother,” quod he, “where is now youre dwellyng,
  Another day if that I sholde you seche?”
  This yeman hym answerde, in softe speche: 
  “Brother,” quod he, “fer in the north contree,
  Where as I hope som tyme I shal thee see.”

The Friar’s Tale.  Chaucer.

In the North Riding of Yorkshire, there is a town of such antiquity that its beginnings are lost far away in the mists of those times of which no written records exist.  What this town was originally called, it is impossible to say, but since the days of William the Norman (a pleasanter sounding name than “the Conqueror,”) it has been consistently known as Pickering, although there has always been a tendency to spell the name with y’s and to abandon the c, thus producing the curious-looking result of Pykeryng; its sound, however was the same.

In his Chronicles, John Stow states on the authority of “divers writers” that Pickering was built in the year 270 B.C., but I am inclined to think that the earliest settlements on the site or in the neighbourhood of the present town must have been originated at an infinitely earlier period.

But despite its undisputed antiquity there are many even in Yorkshire who have never heard of the town, and in the south of England it is difficult to find anyone who is aware that such a place exists.  At Rennes during the great military trial there was a Frenchman who asked “Who is Dreyfus?” and we were surprised at such ignorance of a name that had been on the lips of all France for years, but yet we discover ourselves to be astonishingly lacking in the knowledge of our own little island and find ourselves asking “why should anyone trouble to write a book about a town of which so few have even heard?” But it is often in the out-of-the-way places that historical treasures are preserved, and it is mainly for this reason and the fact that the successive periods of growth are so well demonstrated there, that the ancient town of Pickering has been selected to illustrate the evolution of an English town.