8^th March 2014

It wasn’t quite the spring day we were promised but we stuck it out through the cold to venture out surveying. Today there were 5 of us (Sue, Tony, David, Chris and Jane), so we could divide into two recording teams. Again we are indebted to the local farmer for permission to go around another of his large fields – another whole day to survey just one field, even though we had two teams today – recording the enclosing walls. This time we were in a field neighbouring the one we surveyed last week.

"Are you sure?"   (c) Jane Lunnon

"Well, I think so..."   (c) Jane Lunnon

Lying to the south of the tofts and crofts of old Eastby, the walls around the large enclosure fields vary widely in character. In-between lies Garros Lane, a now disused wall-enclosed lane which formerly gave local farmers access to the outlying fields. The wall on the north side of this lane appears to be the original revetted wall marking the southern boundary of the old tofts and crofts, and is probably medieval.

For the second week running we enjoyed the sight of hares playing across the fields in their March madness.

Tony's immaculate boots & trousers  (c) Jane Lunnon 

The mud was just as thick as last week - yet Tony's boots and trousers remained pristine clean as always - while the rest of us were coated in mud within the first half hour.

Wall Anoraks !  (c) Jane Lunnon

Eventually we came out of the field at Water Lane, where bemused ramblers asked us what on earth we were doing. They seemed very interested in what we told them – but they probably thought we were a little mad!

At the top of Water Lane we found the farmer and had a good long chat with him about the walls and fields round about his farm. He was able to tell us some interesting little titbits about the history of some of the houses in Eastby. It was a good end to the day’s surveying.

We stopped off at the churchyard on the way back to Embsay, for a look round at some of the gravestones for some of the people in our genealogical database – the database is still growing every week. We recently passed the 12,000 names mark!

Then it was everyone back to our house for tea, cheesecake and natter.

Jane Lunnon.