Tall tales and true: of Yorkshire moors and the byways of Surrey: Tofts and crofts

Many of the villages we are coming across in Yorkshire have a singularity about them that is worth noting. A certain uniqueness that makes them stick in our memory, which is rather a bonus in these days when our memories are far from as reliable as they used to be. It is the ones that stick that give me something to write about.

We have long since learned that if we are planning a longish linear day trip with a return, that it is wisest if we head to the furtherest point on that route map first, without dilly-dallying. Otherwise, we end up talking so much to folk enroute, that we oftentimes don't make it to the planned destination.

Today fitted that plan. Our furtherest point happened to be a deserted Medieval village tucked away in the wolds, with a good walk from and to the car park, which tested our measure: Wharram Percy. It is a long time since we voluntarily walked up and down hills. But, today, we managed quite well with only a little huff and puff over the narrow, sometimes wonky path underfoot, much of which turned out to be the Wolds Way, one of the national trails so beloved by walkers. And there were a few of those out and about to catch up with and enlighten us as the morning walk rolled on and we had questions to ask.

One extraordinary thing we learned early on: the track we walked has been there, and used, since the Iron Age. That is amazing to us. As we walked, we could imagine the livestock bearing loads up and down the track, to and from the streamlet below the village. We could hear the grinding of the waterwheels spitting corn, hawkers selling their produce, dogs barking, and imagine shy village children tugging trailing skirts of the village folk.

Archaeologists and hundreds of volunteers have recently spent over 40 years excavating Wharram Percy, on and off. There are believed to be over 3,000 deserted medieval villages in England, but this is probably the most famous, given the extensive dig and the comprehensive finds discovered here.

Today, apart from the tumbling church remains and a restored farm building developed as cottages for the archaeologists during their excavation stay, the site is all grassy mounds, ditches, and smoothed gravelled sites laid out and bordered for easy recognition, with information boards ringing in the changes over the aeons, dotted everywhere. It all takes some reading and deciphering, but the images help.

Like the Iron age track, the village itself is ancient, going back some 600 years or more, and seemingly once had Viking owners, with names like Lagman and Ketilborn. The fate of the village ebbed and flowed over time but reached a peak in the 13th century when the noble Percy family built a manor on the plateau overlooking the 'tofts and crofts' of their peasant tenants. The 'tofts' were tiny dwellings facing the village streets; the 'crofts', long narrow stretches of land fenced off for them to farm. Springs and fishponds and watermills dotted the valley. The Percys owned a large manor house high on the plateau with many outbuildings and barns, dovecots, courtyards and even a private deer park for food. At its peak on a fine sunny day like today it may well have seemed perfect to those living there.

But then came soaring prices for wool sales. And the need for sheep and pasture lands as opposed to agriculture which was no longer so profitable.

The tenants here, as during the Scottish enclosures, were soon evicted to make way for sheep. The medieval village changed over time with most of the villagers gone, and the more visible remnants today are from the 18th century: the improved farmhouse, and the church, which has changed style and size several times over the ages. Some 700 medieval skeletons have been excavated in the ancient church graveyard offering fascinating information about the times. One extraordinary photograph tells the tale of a medieval skull injury where a great gash to the skull so threatened the life of a man that it was only after skilful 'surgery' enabling the injury to be skilfully scraped and cleaned allowing drainage to relieve pressure building up on the brain that the man survived and lived on. Methinks he might have been more of a 'toff' than a 'toftsman', though, given all that effort, expertise and expense for those times.