Silpho

The Tower on the Plateau

The water tower is the first thing you notice, and for a hamlet this small it is a surprising thing to have built. About ten metres tall, two storeys under a pitched roof, it looks less like utility infrastructure than a very small stone tower-house. It was raised in the early to mid-nineteenth century and kept working until around 1970. A red K6 telephone box and a post box stand beside it, and together the three make the visual centre of a place that otherwise spreads itself thin along one road.

Most of what there is to Silpho lies along that one road. Silpho sits high on a plateau north of Hackness, its buildings strung between open fields and paddocks with wide grassy verges, low dry-stone walls and mature trees between them. The gaps are as much a part of the settlement as the houses. The National Park's own planners describe it as having a "very open and remote character," which is the plain truth of standing at the top and looking out.

Stone Houses and a Witch Post

The older houses are sandstone under red clay pantiles, with traditional farmhouses closing off each end. The converted chapel, now a private house, uses slate, as do the later gabled semis. Before it became a home the chapel spent time as an outdoor education centre for disadvantaged children.

The building worth knowing about is Pond Cottage, an early-seventeenth-century longhouse that began with byres for animals under the same roof as the people. Its fireplace survives complete: bressumer, heck, hearth bench, and a carved witch post, a piece of North-East Yorkshire folk carving once set by the hearth for protection and now an extremely rare survival. The house is a private home and not a place to visit, but it is the reason a modest vernacular cottage is listed at all.

Walks Beyond the One Road

There's no pub or shop in Silpho these days, so the village is best treated as a quiet heritage-and-views stop paired with a walk. A local circuit leaves past Mill Farm, climbs towards Walker Flat Wood, then turns by the water tower towards Haggland Wood. A longer circular from Hackness comes up through Lowdales and drops back through Hilda Wood. Nearby Broxa Forest offers conifer tracks, a picnic area and, on summer evenings, the chance of hearing nightjars. Check the current rights-of-way notices before you set out, as one of the local bridleways has been subject to temporary closure.

Pubs in the Neighbouring Villages

For food and a pint, the nearest options are in Burniston and Cloughton. The Three Jolly Sailors at Burniston, run by Luke and Christian, does steak pie, Whitby scampi, stone-baked pizzas and burgers, with Black Sheep Best Bitter and Timothy Taylor Landlord on cask and a beer garden and dog-friendly facilities. The Blacksmith's Arms at Cloughton, a late-seventeenth-century pub on the A171, runs to homemade steak pie, haddock and chips, a Barnsley lamb chop and a sweet-potato, chickpea and spinach curry. Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip took their first pub lunch there in May 2010.

Minor Roads and Ancient Ground

Getting here means minor moorland roads; the northern approach is signed off the A171 at Burniston. Scarborough station, about five and a half miles away, is the nearest railhead, and there's no scheduled bus to the hamlet — check timetables before you travel. On Silpho Brow, at the top of the scarp, a low prehistoric round barrow sits in the grass, eight metres across and barely knee-high, keeping the same long view the water tower keeps.