ere may also be remains of the Norman building.

At the adjoining village of Snainton the old church was taken down in
1835, but the Norman stones of the south doorway of the nave have been
re-erected, and now form an arch in an adjoining wall. The font of the
same period having been found in a garden, was replaced in the church on a
new base in 1893. In Edstone church the Norman font, with a simple arcade
pattern running round the circular base, is still to be seen, and at
Levisham the very plain chancel arch mentioned in the preceding chapter is
also of Norman work. Allerston church has some pieces of zig-zag ornament
built into the north wall, and Ebberston church has a slit window on the
north side of the chancel, and the south door built in Norman times. The
nave arcade at Ebberston may belong to the Transitional Norman period and
the font also.

Most of the churches in the neighbourhood of Pickering are, therefore,
seen to have either been built in the Norman age or to possess fragments
of the buildings that were put up in that period. The difficulty of
preventing the churches from being too cold was met in some degree by
having no windows on the north side as at Sinnington, and those windows
that faced the other cardinal points were sufficiently small to keep out
the extremes of temperature.

[Illustration: The Norman font at Edstone.]

The written records belonging to the Norman period of the history of
Pickering seem to have largely disappeared, so that with the exception of
the Domesday Book, and a few stray references to people or places in this
locality, we are largely dependent on the buildings that have survived
those tempestuous years.

Pickering appears to have been a royal possession during the whole of this
time, and it is quite probable that the Norman kings hunted in the forest
and lodged with their Courts in the castle, for a writ issued by Henry I.
is dated at Pickering.

CHAPTER VIII

_The Forest and Vale in the Time of the Plantagenets_

A.D. 1154 to 1485

The story of these three centuries is told to a most remarkable extent in
the numerous records of the Duchy of Lancaster relating to the maintenance
of the royal Forest of Pickering. They throw a clear light on many aspects
of life at Pickering, and by picking out some of the more picturesque
incidents recorded we may see to what extent the severe forest laws kept
in check the poaching element in the neighbourhood. We can also d