Ugglebarnby

All Saints Above the Village

All Saints stands on the high ground at the centre of Ugglebarnby, and the rest of the village arranges itself around it. The road called The Cliff earns the name, climbing steeply through clusters of sandstone cottages under red pantile roofs, with Foss Hill running roughly parallel behind. Between the two the ground falls into a shallow, tree-filled valley, and mature trees wrap around the churchyard. Tall hedges hide most of the houses, and the gaps between them open onto long views of open country.

The present church was built in 1872 to a design by C. N. Armfield, paid for by the Allan family of Hempsyke in memory of John Allan and furnished by his children. Inside, the High Victorian scheme largely survives: carved pews with traceried doors and poppyheads, a hammerbeam nave roof braced with angels, a stone Last Supper reredos by Matthew Noble, a carved font and cover, and a two-manual Holdich organ from the year the church opened.

Among the Ward & Hughes windows is an unusual image of Judas Iscariot clutching his purse.

Older Stones, Bells and Records

Older pieces survive too. Reset twelfth-century colonnettes and some probably Norman carved stone remain from the medieval chapel that stood here first. The chapel belonged to Whitby Abbey until the Dissolution, after which the property passed to the Archbishop of York; the abbey's ruins are visible from Ugglebarnby's higher ground.

Three bells cast in 1872 hang in the tower, the parish registers run back to 1732, and a bishop's chair carries the date 1698.

Domesday Manor and the Doss House

The village itself is far older than its church. It appears in Domesday as Uglebardsby, and the manor was held by the De Everley family following its devastation during William I's Harrowing of the North campaign.

On the approach up from Iburndale there once stood a house known as the Doss House. It took in elderly farm labourers, fed them, and paid them fourpence a day for whatever work they could still manage.

A Mariner's Hall and the Battle Banks Walk

Down the lane, Lowdale Hall was rebuilt in 1851 for Christopher Holt Appleby, a master mariner. He hung a bell probably taken from one of his ships, and planted trees brought back from his voyages that still stand out among the native ones.

The walking is the main reason to climb up here. A five-mile parish circular crosses Iburndale Beck, follows the old drive towards Lowdale Hall, and climbs Battle Banks towards Ugglebarnby; it is steep in places and not wheelchair friendly. The direct route up from Sleights is Iburndale Lane, which becomes The Cliff.

Sleights by Rail, Bus and Bakery

Sleights, at the bottom of the hill, has a station on the Esk Valley line — a single step-free platform with a shelter and a ticket machine but no staff and no toilets — on Northern's run between Middlesbrough and Whitby. Buses from Sleights include the 95 into Whitby and the 96 west along the Esk through Grosmont, Egton and Glaisdale.

Botham's, the Whitby bakery trading since 1865, has a branch on Sleights' main road. The Salmon Leap Hotel serves breakfast with eggs from its own hens, while its rear beer garden overlooks steam trains passing through the valley in summer.