History of North York Moors National Park

Roman

By AD 71 the Roman army had reached Yorkshire where they established a fort at Malton. From here a number of roads radiated. One of these roads may have been Wade's Causeway, a possible Roman road, which led north-eastwards over the Vale of Pickering and across Wheeldale Moor towards the North Sea coast. There are Roman camps at Cawthorn and Lease Rigg near Grosmont and there are signal stations along the coast at Filey, Scarborough, Ravenscar, Goldsborough and Hunt Cliff. The Romans left Britain in AD 410.

Anglo-Saxon and Viking

After the departure of the Romans, Germanic tribes arrived and settled in the area. These Angles, Saxons and Jutes gave many of the place names to villages on the moors They worshipped a number of gods, notably Woden. However, Christianity came to Yorkshire when King Edwin of Northumbria was baptised in AD 627 at York. Christian monasteries were established at Lastingham in 654 and Whitby in 657. A nunnery was built at Hackness in 680.

In the ninth century Viking raiders began to attack the Yorkshire coast and in 867 these Danes destroyed the religious houses at Whitby, Lastingham and Hackness and after battle set up a new Danish kingdom based at York. The Danes settled in the area and later themselves became Christian. They introduced their language, elements of which still remain in the local dialect, and renamed a number of settlements.

The Middle Ages

King William I of England and his Norman barons took control of the