Stories are told of the Parliamentary troops being quartered in Pickering
church, and, if this were true, we have every reason to bless the coats of
whitewash which probably hid the wall-paintings from their view. The
series of fifteenth century pictures that now cover both walls of the nave
would have proved so very distasteful to the puritan soldiery that it is
impossible to believe that they could have tolerated their existence,
especially when we find it recorded that the font was smashed and the
large prayer-book torn to pieces at that time.

[Illustration: Rosamund Tower, Pickering Castle.]

Pickering church has a fascination for the antiquary, and does not fail to
impress even the most casual person who wanders into the churchyard and
enters the spacious porch. The solemn massiveness of the Norman nave, the
unusual effect of the coloured paintings above the arches, and the carved
stone effigies of knights whose names are almost forgotten, carry one away
from the familiar impressions of a present-day Yorkshire town, and almost
suggest that one is living in mediæval times. One can wander, too, on the
moors a few miles to the north and see heather stretching away to the most
distant horizon and feel that there, also, are scenes which have been
identically the same for many centuries. The men of the Neolithic and
Bronze Ages may have swept their eyes over landscapes so similar that they
would find the moorlands quite as they knew them, although they would miss
the dense forests of the valleys and the lower levels.

The cottages in the villages are, many of them, of great age, and most of
them have been the silent witnesses of innumerable superstitious rites and
customs. When one thoroughly realises the degrading character of the
beliefs that so powerfully swayed the lives of the villagers and