But now that familiarity with these
bridges, which are of the same pattern across every wooded ravine up
the coast-line to Redcar, has blunted my impressions, I can think of
the picturesqueness of East Row without remembering the railway. It was
in this glen, where Lord Normanby's lovely woods make a background for
the pretty tiled cottages, the mill, and the old stone bridge, which
make up East Row,[1] that the Saxons chose a home for their god Thor.
Here they built some rude form of temple, afterwards, it seems,
converted into a hermitage. This was how the spot obtained the name
Thordisa, a name it retained down to 1620, when the requirements of
workmen from the newly-started alum-works at Sandsend led to building
operations by the side of the stream. The cottages which arose became
known afterwards as East Row.
[Footnote 1: Since this was written one or two new houses have been
allowed to mar the simplicity of the valley.--G.H.]
Go where you will in Yorkshire, you will find no more fascinating
woodland scenery than that of the gorges of Mulgrave.
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