The East Riding hamlet of Everthorpe has a claim to fame. And no, it’s not HMP Humber, the Category C prison nearby. Everthorpe’s USP is an OS FBM: an Ordnance Survey Fundamental Bench Mark. Most of us are familiar with OS trig points – summit concrete pillars once used for surveying heights and positions pre-GPS….
Category: Yorkshire places
Cottingham: Going large
After riding through Sykehouse, England’s longest village, I headed to England’s largest village: Cottingham. Well, so it claims. With a population of 18,000 it’s certainly bigger than many towns (such as Middleham on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales, home to under 500 people but also a lot of horses). It’s even bigger than Ripon…
Sykehouse: Long story
Q: What links – River Severn; Elizabeth II; M6; Sykehouse? A: England’s longest – river; reign; motorway; village. Yes, Sykehouse, excitingly positioned between Doncaster and Goole in south Yorkshire, is the longest village in the country. And to prove it I rode through the place on this, the shortest day of the year. There are…
Oulston: May the Foss be with you
The source of York’s other river, the Foss, is a hillside hole in a wood about fifteen miles north. A few years ago (as part of my Yorkshire River rides) I cycled to the High-Dales source of the Ouse, the Foss’s much bigger counterpart which swallows it up in the city centre. But today I…
Holgate: No trouble at t’Mill
York is not short of images. The Minster, the City Walls, the Shambles, the pubs, the TikTok tourists queueing three hours to buy a ghost-shaped pepperpot. But there are many lesser-celebrated, quirky things to marvel at. I list them on my Bizarre Sights Guide to York on this website. My favourite of the lot is…
Bishop Wilton: The famous secret village
It may sound like a medieval church reformer, but Bishop Wilton – thanks to an article on unknown hidden-gem villages in the Sunday Times last weekend – has suddenly become East Yorkshire’s most famous secret place. So I couldn’t resist the excuse to visit it this sunny day, as part of a scenic amble round…
Mastiles Lane: In the droving seat
Drove roads – those ancient tracks once used to move livestock herds across the country to market – can make excellent mountain biking opportunities for people like me who don’t really like mountain biking. Mastiles Lane, running over the limestone hills of the Yorkshire Dales between Malham Tarn and Wharfedale, is a prime example. I…
Driffield: Yorkshire’s smiling Bletchley Park
The market town of Driffield – Gateway to the Wolds – is not associated with codebreaking. Alan Turing never cycled here, and it never had pioneering computers the size of a factory. It’s an East Riding farm-country hub, mainly known for having the largest agricultural show in Britain. But I was there today to explore…
Rufforth: Journey to the Centre of the Earth II
In 2017 I rode to Hessay, a village west of York, to find the Centre of Yorkshire. At the point suggested by the Ordnance Survey as the county’s centroid, all I found was a cowpat. Since then, however, the OS has refined its calculations. It now reckons the exact geographical middle – the point on…
Ouse Gill Beck: Ouse Ure friend?
A few miles upstream from York, the River Ure shiftily changes name to become the River Ouse. Why? Where? How? Who? I cycled along both rivers today to find out. The official cut-and-paste story is that the Ure becomes the Ouse at Cuddy Shaw Reach, just before Linton-on-Ouse. For reasons never explained, the hundred-metre-wide Ure…