ated, facing p. 209, "Associated Architectural
Societies' Reports," vol. xii. 1873.]

[Illustration: Two Crossheads at Sinnington Church. The one on the left
shows a Crucifixion.]

Hinderwell mentions a curious legend in connection with the cave in a
small conical hill at Ebberston, that has since been destroyed. The
country people called it Ilfrid's Hole, the tradition being that a Saxon
king of that name took shelter there when wounded after a battle. An
inscription that was formerly placed above the cave said: "Alfrid, King of
Northumberland, was wounded in a bloody battle near this place, and was
removed to Little Driffield, where he lies buried; hard by his
entrenchments may be seen." The roughly built stone hut with a domed roof
that now crowns the hill is within twenty yards of the site of the cave,
and was built by Sir Charles Hotham in 1790 to preserve the memory of
this legendary king. In the period that lay between the conversion of
Northumbria to Christianity in 627, and the ravages of Dane and Northman
in the ninth and tenth centuries, we know by the traces that survive that
the Saxons built a church in each of their villages, and that they placed
beautifully sculptured crosses above the graves of their dead. The
churches were small and quite simple in plan, generally consisting of a
nave and chancel, with perhaps a tower at the west end. Owing to the
importance of Pickering the Saxon church may have been a little in advance
of the rest, and its tower may have been ornamented as much as that of
Earl's Barton, but we are entering the dangerous realms of conjecture, and
must be reconciled to that one fragment of a pre-Norman cross that is now
carefully preserved in the south aisle of the present building.

CHAPTER VII

_The Forest and Vale in Norman Times_

A.D. 1066-1154

In the early years of the reign of William I., when the northern counties
rose against his rule, the Pickering district seems to have required more
drastic treatment than any other. In 1069 the Conqueror spent the winter
in the north of England, and William of Malmesbury describes how "he
ordered the towns and fields of the whole district to be laid waste; the
fruits and grain to be destroyed by fire or by water ... thus the
resources of a once flourishing province were cut off, by fire, slaughter,
and devastation; the ground for more than sixty miles, totally
uncultivated and unproductive, remains bare to the present day." This