The quaint little Saxon
church there is one of the few bearing evidences of its own date,
ascertained by the discovery in 1771 of a Saxon sun-dial, which had
survived under a layer of plaster, and was also protected by the porch.
A translation of the inscription reads: 'Orm, the son of Gamal, bought
St. Gregory's Minster when it was all broken and fallen, and he caused
it to be made anew from the ground, for Christ and St. Gregory, in the
days of King Edward and in the days of Earl Tosti, and Hawarth wrought
me and Brand the prior (priest or priests).' By this we are plainly
told that a church was built there in the reign of Edward the
Confessor.
A pleasant road leads through Nawton to the beautiful little town of
Helmsley. A bend of the broad, swift-flowing Rye forms one boundary of
the place, and is fed by a gushing brook that finds its way from
Rievaulx Moor, and forms a pretty feature of the main street.
A narrow turning by the market-house shows the torn and dishevelled
fragment of the keep of Helmsley Castle towering above the thatched
roofs in the foreground.
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