Lastingham

The Inn Across from the Crypt

The Blacksmith's Arms sits directly across the road from the church door, opposite an eleventh-century crypt. The building goes back to the seventeenth century, with exposed beams and an open fireplace, and it took the Countryside Alliance's Yorkshire Pub of the Year award in 2019. Alli Moran took over the kitchen in May 2021 and cooks with nearby game, local beef and other Yorkshire produce.

Food is a major draw. The Blacksmiths steak-and-ale pie is a recommended dish, alongside a lamb-and-mint version, both made with local meat and homemade shortcrust. Beyond the pies the menu runs to Cumberland sausage with cheddar mash and onion relish, the "Horny Cow" burger with smoked Applewood and tomato relish, a daube of beef with bubble and squeak and a thyme dumpling, lemon-and-herb-crusted cod with chorizo and smoked-Applewood dauphinoise, and a whole baked Camembert with garlic, rosemary and crusty bread. In good weather there is pizza in the garden. Dogs are welcome in one of the two restaurant areas, though not in the bedrooms upstairs.

A Moorland Hollow and a Monastic Church

The village itself sits in a hollow on the southern edge of the North York Moors, where Spaunton Moor drops down towards Ryedale. Hole Beck, fed off the moor, runs between small greens and stone cottages, and open moorland and woodland close in on every side.

St Mary's is the reason most people find their way here. St Cedd founded a monastery on this spot in AD 654, ten years before the Synod of Whitby, and died of plague here in 664. The church you see began in 1078, when Stephen of Whitby set out to build a grand Benedictine abbey; he abandoned the work around 1085 and left for York, and the unfinished building became the parish church in 1228. What survives from that first ambition is the apsidal crypt beneath the chancel, long associated with Cedd's shrine. Simon Jenkins called it "one of England's special places." J. L. Pearson added the vault and clerestory in 1879. Inside there is a carved Calvary taken from the Spanish warship Salvador del Mundi, and a copy of Correggio's Agony in the Garden by John Jackson, a portrait painter born here in 1778 as the village tailor's son.

Four Holy Wells

Lastingham has four holy wells, dedicated to Cedd, Chad, Ovin and Mary Magdalene. St Cedd's well-house was rebuilt in the nineteenth century with stone carried from Rosedale Abbey; St Ovin's has run dry; and when St Mary Magdalene's trough was dug out in 1964 it turned up pottery from late Roman, early Saxon and thirteenth-century hands.

The Walk to Hutton-le-Hole

For walking, a four-mile circular links Lastingham with Hutton-le-Hole, taking quiet fields, lanes and woodland out and returning across the Spaunton escarpment with its long views. There are gates but no stiles, one steep wooded climb, and mud after rain. It ties the crypt to the Ryedale Folk Museum, six acres of open-air buildings that include an Iron Age roundhouse and an Edwardian photographic studio.

Road, Rail and Village Rhythm

Getting here means minor roads off the A170, which runs about three miles to the south; Malton is the practical National Rail station, Pickering's heritage line the nearer destination, and the occasional Moorsbus calls in on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays. Darley Memorial Hall, once the village school, keeps the ordinary rhythm going with coffee mornings, keep-fit and the odd stone-carving festival.