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 which a Yorkshire-shaped cardboard cutout would balance, if you could wait long enough for the wind to stop blowing it around – is at BNG 449849.854 454205.65.

Or, as Google Maps would prefer it, 53.981513, -1.241358.

Or, as what3words would say, cheese.centrally.salmon.

*Not replaced by AI yet: Manually operated level crossing at Hammerton*

Whichever way you put it, the CoY is just outside Hessay, off a publicly accessible farm track, about a mile from where I went in 2017.

The Yorkshire Society (which asked the OS for the information in the first place) said they wanted to mark the spot with a plaque, but the only place I could see that you could fix a sign to is a tree a few dozen yards from the centre itself.

*Brush up your cycling skills: Sign on the A59 near Hessay*

You can’t quite get to the point. (Just like those people on trains who talk incessantly to me about themselves; I clearly have a listening face.) It’s a handful of yards inside a field next to that farm track. Handily, there is a white stone almost exactly at the right spot.

*Zeroing in: Track to Wilstrop Lodge Farm, and the zero-point of Yorkshire*

There’s not much to see around here. This is flat farmland in the Vale of York, much of it underwater in this dreary wet weather pattern.

*Sorry, Barkston Ash: This is Yorkshire’s most central tree*

If you venture a mile or two away, though, there are a few things I’ve cycled to in the past that are worth a look. Nun Monkton, with England’s tallest maypole; the site of the historic Battle of Marston Moor; a Silly-Walks-inspired piece of road sign adulteration in Bilton-in-Ainsty.

*L’Origine du monde: That white stone at middle right is the Centre of Yorkshire*

And there are various other candidates for the ‘Centre of Yorkshire’ which I’ve cycled to, as well. Moor Monkton’s church; Barkston Ash’s ash; Cattal’s pub; Hessay’s cowpat.

*Roll with it: Community cafe in Rufforth*

But – at least at the time of writing, according to the OS’s latest calculations – the muddy field west of Hessay, possibly marked by a stone possibly not, is the exact centre of Yorkshire, and therefore the exact centre of the civilised world.

*Root of the problem: Fallen tree on the bike path to Harewood Whin outside Poppleton*

I rode home with a big tailwind back to York, stopping off for a bacon roll at the excellent, friendly community cafe in Rufforth, and negotiating fallen trees and flooded towpaths on my journey back home.

*Current situation: Flooded towpath at Clifton*

I’m not an egotistical person at all. But it was nice to know that, for a few minutes today, I was at the centre not just of my own world, but everyone else’s.