The Macabre Discovery

Nestling below Pickering Castle and dating back to the 12th century stands High Mill, atop a sometimes fast-flowing mill leat.

Where the leat runs under the building, a heavy wrought iron trash screen covered the entrance to prevent debris fouling the vital mill wheels that provided power for the mill. Few people know the macabre reason for its removal and fewer know that it still lies hidden just below the water under the brick arch beneath the building.



During the mid 20th century, when the mill still ground corn, a local woman with a propensity for strong drink would often weave her unsteady way home alongside the mill leat. On occasion, her weaving was less alongside than in the mill leat and it was not unusual for her to be helped out in a wet and sorry state. She gave up the drink abruptly one foul night when the leat was running fast and furious, as her cold lifeless body was found pinned up against the High Mill trash screen.

It’s likely that her body was discovered by the miller, Hubert Coulson. Ironically, Hubert was also partial to a ‘wee refreshment’ and was frequently found on urgent errands at the nearby Station Hotel and other such hostelries while his assistant coped single handed – surprisingly for its size, the mill was run by only two men. There is no evidence that the macabre discovery slaked his thirst. Neither is there any evidence of the tormented spirit of this woman pacing the dark empty old mill in search of a bottle of something warming.

The following article appeared in the NYMR magazine 'Moors Line' in Spring 2006, although I'd written it at the request of Len Clarke at least a year before. It didn't include all these photo's.

PICKERING HIGH MILL

Three years ago, when approaching Pickering station on the train, you may have thought you were passing an area of dense woodland. Fast forward a couple of years and at the identical spot your eye will more likely be drawn to the 'High Mill'

totem, beautifully enamelled by Len Clarke, better known for the paintwork on numerous NYMR stalwarts and more notably, the Hogwarts Express. The engine drivers will certainly be familiar with this spot, as it is exactly where they stop at the points when 'changing ends' for the return trip to Grosmont. If you think this totem is a total fake, think again. The orange and white livery is the genuine article for the line and High Mill Halt hearkens back to the early days of the NYMR. At this time, not only was Pickering station closed and inaccessible to trains, but the town council were mounting a serious campaign to demolish it! How times change.

Firmly attached to the rear of the aforementioned totem is a substantial Victorian dwelling, which in turn is tagged onto the back of High Mill. Although the lofty brick gable ends of the mill are visible from the railway, the imposing stone frontage can only be viewed by continuing along the road past the station, or better still, from the lofty platform of Castle Road up on the hillside.

High Mill (once also called North Mill) was first known to exist close to the castle's Mill Tower in the 13th century and was almost certainly the earliest in Pickering. For many centuries it operated as a corn mill, until the advent of steam power and then electricity rendered it uneconomic. For several decades it continued as an animal feed mill (no doubt buoyed for a while by the war years), until it finally closed in 1958. Sadly the waterwheels, millstones and drive gear were all removed at this time and it has stood empty ever since.

As late as the mid 1800s, it was still only a single storey building with sluices supported on a wooden frame and two waterwheels. After this time, the building was variously enlarged and heightened, with a wheelhouse completely enclosing the mill leat, with further storage space above.

The dwelling house would have been added at a later date, probably in the late 1800s, but certainly post-dating the arrival of the railway, due to its facing of white 'railway brick'. There clearly wasn't much space left to squeeze the house into as can be seen by its close proximity to the railway line. However on the plus side, this does mean it can scarcely be surpassed as a viewing platform along the whole length of the line.

When the property came on the market in early 2001, it took very little persuasion by my wife to have a 'quick nosy round', as it was a building I had often passed, admired and sympathised with in its sadly neglected state. Following a brief moment of niaive stupidity covering all of eight months, we exchanged a desirable stone built family house in Thornton-le-Dale for a large semi-derelict hovel, shared with about 100 pigeons and a lot of damp. In a scenario no doubt familiar to the nearby Gresley coach restorers, the roof leaked gallons a day and most of the woodwork was completely rotten and riddled with woodworm.

Plaster in various shades of green fell off the crumbling walls and the lead covered electric cables could best be described as lethal. Every small part of the building 'needs some attention does that'.

In common with most big renovation projects, the initial time-scale has been lost in the mists of time. Little realistically could be done for the first year other than patching up, until the whole of the mill and house had been re-roofed.

However, the pigeons were evicted along with several decades of associated guano and the forestry was returned to some semblance of a garden with the removal of dense undergrowth and around 20 trees, plus laying of the hedge from its former 15-20 ft elevation.

Once the ingress of water was halted, the major DIY project continued at an unerringly sedate pace. Rotten plaster was hacked off and ceilings ripped down. Rotten joists were replaced in almost every room and floors re-laid. Walls were repointed and in many places rebuilt. Windows and doors were stripped off, rotten sections renewed, reglazed, painted and replaced. Although the crumbling electrics have mostly been rewired, there still remain major tasks such as replumbing, fitting a heating system and replastering. And that's just in the house! Oh, by the way, we live in it too, in a nomadic room-to-room sort of way.

One day, we may even realise our goal of using the house as a holiday let in order to earn enough money to set about the mill, plans for which remain hazy. Now it has been reroofed, it will hopefully wait patiently for that day to arrive. So far, it has had to make do with a cosmetic makeover, with the smashed windows reglazed and woodwork painted, along with the 'Lumleys' sign on the south gable. Time seems to be the key - I really could do with ditching the day job!

Postscript:
We demolished the old crumbling outbuildings, replaced them with a new house in 2006/07 and moved in in Oct 07. Renovation of High Mill House continued after around 3 years of working almost exclusively on the new build and it opened for business as self-catering accommodation in Sep 2009 - a mere 6 years longer than our original estimate. I ditched the day job 2 years ago and still never seem to have any spare time!

Singapore Sling

29 Nov.
Parking up at Manchester Airport. Slight shortage of lime chipping surface, car almost swallowed by potholes. Grounded a couple of times, saved from total immersion by ice floes. Ditch the winter coat? Emphatically not. 20 mins waiting for an airport bus at 0700 in sub zero Manchester = layers.

Plane delayed 2hrs due to snow en route in. What’s another 2 hrs on a 14hr flight? Route back out to Singapore via Munich. For those of us of a certain age, flying from Manchester and coming in to land in Munich in driving snow evokes memories. Better not thought about of course. Safely in and out after a 30 min leg stretch on German soil and lengthy de-icing. Singapore Airlines thoroughly recommended. Plenty of decent food and drink and excellent entertainment selection. Much of my entertainment consisted of finishing the cycling club accounts, formulating a back up strategy for Pickering flood scheme and a query about wind turbines. Sad really, but it’s an awful lot of time to kill when you can’t sleep on planes. Apparently the air hostesses are rather attractive in their native attire, but I didn’t really notice - repeatedly.

30 Nov

Arrival1000 (0200 UK), flying in over the Malacca Straits with the city in full view. No shortage of spectacular high rise buildings or ships in the straits. Astounding density of shipping puts the English Channel to shame. Outside the air conditioned airport, the hot and humid reality of monsoon season in equatorial Singapore hits hard. Almost 40 deg C variation on Manchester.

Couple of hours sleep and still slightly jetlag blitzed, it was out on the town. Excellent lobster at Ms Tan’s accompanied by refreshing coconut drink - a straw in the top of a hacked open fresh coconut (not the old brown shrivelled nut we’re used to). Sounds decadent, but just simple local fare. Couple of local beers, one very potent sakae (with an aftertaste not unlike premium diesel) and slept soundly.

1 Dec
Staying with old friend Anver, who‘s been working here for 2 years, so good training course on local etiquette, shopping, eating and public transport. The buses and MRT (Metro) are cheap, regular, highly efficient and integrated. Pay with one simple top up card, swiped as you get on and off. They have a huge advantage - massive demand. Cars aren’t cheap to buy, but a Certificate of Entitlement (to drive the vehicle) must first be bought for about £36,000 or more - depending on size, lasting 10 years.

Shopping trip to a bustling local supermarket, with lots of unfamiliar fresh produce and fresh fish, crab and frogs live in tanks - but evidently not for long!

There is obviously huge wealth and growth, based on the strategic location for trading and money markets. Singapore is heavily populated, multi-cultural, multi-racial, but still a remarkably safe, clean and well ordered society. It comes at a cost. Strictly enforced capital and corporal punishment and hefty fines. Virtually no petty crime or vandalism. You feel quite safe at any time of the day or night - even in the city centre or housing estates. Young women will walk alone at night.

No respite from the work hard, play hard ethos, so off we went for a night at the world famous Raffles Hotel. A Singapore Sling was obligatory in the place it was invented back in the old colonial days. Back to the safety of Tiger Beer thereafter. Raffles is one of the few lovely old buildings to survive the onslaught of steel, concrete and glass high rise capitalism. Although there are occasional claims of being environmentally sensitive, it bears all the hallmarks of the worst lip service. I’ll draw a veil over the rest of the night other than to say a few beers in live music venues and tucked up by 0620. Ahem.

Thereafter

Although our friend Anver is a relatively affluent businessman, he’s risen through the ranks from humble beginnings in Manchester, so although some of our time was spent as ‘gwilo’ (derogatory Chinese term for white men) tourists, almost as much was spent going native. It gives you more of a flavour of the real Singapore and of working long hard hours for subsistence wages. Family and education are a major priority here. It’s an example for the multitude in the UK that take their education for granted and squander the opportunity. The Singapore kids are likely to have a bloody tough life without qualifications.

A trip to the serious tourist areas for a ‘flight’ on the flyer (bigger version of the London Eye) and visit to the Marine Bay complex and Art Gallery - quite superb Lego exhibition. As you’d expect, lots of photo’s from the Flyer of the towering bastions of capitalism and the massive container terminal along the coast.

Marina Bays Sands complex is one of the more vast and opulent shopping malls. Think of any swankpot designer label and they have a large shop there. I find these places dull and rather nauseating in equal measure, so enough of that - although the air conditioning is quite welcome. A rare plus point among the opulence, Christmas decs and piped music - a choir of about 15 immaculately turned out students (no resemblance to my college days!) with an impromptu performance of Christmas music. Quite wonderful. Enough to moisten the eyes in a desert of decadence.

As an acknowledged exercise junkie sans bike, I tried a couple of runs. Not fantastic in such an urban environment. It’s similar to being stuck in any major metropolis when you’re used to the fell and moorland. I was missing my off road Newtondale tracks and paths. Bathed in sweat and getting perilously close to heat exhaustion by trying to push hard gives an inkling of the inhumanity suffered from slave labour during the war years. We’d observed the city centre roads being closed for the Singapore Marathon, but missed it due to extensive hanging around live music venues (again) until way past my bedtime. I was hard pushed to survive an 8 mile run in this climate, so 26.2 miles didn’t bear thinking about. Cycling in Singapore would probably be like cyling in central London - only without the dedicated facilities that have appeared there in recent years. I don't think they'll ever be a world power in pro cycling.

A few shopping trips were classed as essential, with separate visits to Chinatown, Little India and Kampong Glam (Little Malaysia). These are the areas where some of the many immigrants settled and remain seething masses of small alleyways, shops, stalls, cafes etc. It’s miraculous that such a profusion of small shops selling cloth, jewellery, clothing etc can all survive. Once again, the lack of any threat, petty crime or litter is remarkable in relatively poor areas. Undoubtedly, there is still crime, but strictly enforced laws keep it to a minimum. Only the police are allowed firearms. The penalty for smuggling drugs or firearms is death. Many creeds, colours and religions co-exist cheek by jowl with little or no sign of conflict. It’s not always been that way of course. A lot of what is good about Singapore seems to stem from long-term government planning since the 1960s, working to a far-sighted 25 year plan.

Visiting in the monsoon season meant frequent torrential downpours and violent thunderstorms. Each of our shopping trips above were disrupted by the rain. It’s so heavy at times that you can’t even scuttle across the road from one alley to another. Shopkeepers are well versed in quickly sweeping up their wares under cover and raising racks above the gushing water.

Internal walkways connect most shops. True retail masochists can retreat to one of the multitude of malls. Naturally, I was intrigued by the effective network of storm drains that cover the whole island, building from small channels to huge canals. A costly but essential network when it’s necessary to move huge quantities of water on a regular basis.

They even have a coastal barrage, which has turned the Singapore River estuary into a huge freshwater reservoir. Without the effect of high tides combined with heavy rain, flooding problems in certain parts of the city have been pretty much eradicated and the old harbour area can be used relatively safely for recreational uses.

A lot of land has been reclaimed from the sea. The extensive port area has been overtaken by the business district, making the land far too valuable for mere maritime trade, so a completely new container port has been built further west, with a gradual move across in progress. It’s hard to comprehend the sort of money that’s being invested - much of it from the usual suspects, Russia and China.

Probably of more interest to members was our trip to the Botanic Gardens and Orchid collection. A fantastic array of trees, shrubs and plants covering quite a large area. The trees grow to an amazing size in a relatively short time due to the heat and rainfall, some with huge buttress roots, aerial roots and lianas.

Sadly, a small area of original rain forest is one of the last remaining on the island. Last gasp conservation - they paved paradise, put up a parking lot…. Tra la la.

Another outdoor adventure was the aerial walkway from Hort Park to Harbourfront. You’re mostly on a steel walkway, high above lush vegetation. It’s a sinuous route between developed areas and no doubt terrain spared from the bulldozer by being too severe for development.

A welcome green lung for the city dweller. A small sad remnant to the countryman. We saw very little wildlife - one small vivid green snake snoozing in the sunshine, a few squirrels, although plenty of birds and butterflies. Fortunately mosquitoes are kept under control, but Dengi Fever is still a problem.

Clarke Quay was essential viewing, but only for a fleeting visit. Damn right at 9 quid a pint! This is full on Gwilo territory - full of trendy riverside malls, clubs and bars…. and trendies. Reputedly a seething mass on New Year’s Eve to match the roundabout in Pickering, but we’ll give it a miss. With our host’s local knowledge, we did find a superb blues/rock band at the Crazy Elephant to herald yet another somewhat debauched, musical and very long night, including a stop-off at Orchard Towers to view the night safari (otherwise known as four floors of something-or-other. The name escapes me).

A couple of buildings are worthy of a mention. The Divine Bar at Park View Square is the most sumptuously massive art deco edifice you’re ever likely to see. Quite superb, it wouldn’t look out of place in Gotham City. Ironically, it’s only about 10 years old and at the base of a tower block containing a hotel and apartments. That doesn’t alter the fact that the craftsmanship on a massive scale is breathtaking.

Again the cost is hard to imagine, although the price of a bottle of wine went some small way towards the investment return. The bottle is collected by a ‘wine fairy’ on a trapeze contraption from a 20-30ft high wine rack. Yes, honestly.

Somewhat more traditional is the waterfront Fullerton Hotel, one of the few colonial throwbacks, which in a former life was Singapore’s main post office and still contains red pillar box no. 1. Grand Victorian architecture now dwarfed by skyscrapers, but even here a rather poorly proportioned upward extension has been popped on the top.

13 Dec
Long long day. A few hours around the Museum of Singapore to tidy up our ‘to do‘ list, then back for an hour in the gym to set me up for the purgatory of sitting still for 16 hours. Even with full on aircon, it still needs 10 mins in the pool to cool down enough for a shower. Last supper and fond farewells to our wonderful host. Clock spinning 8 hours backwards and dawn chasing us across the globe. Malaysia, India, Kandahar, Tbilisi, Sevastopol, Odessa, Vienna, Munich, Canvey Island. -18c at the Munich stopover. Bracing ourselves for ice-breaking in the cold light of a Manchester dawn and a weary 3hr drive home with nipped fingers and toes. Before you know it, we’ll be changing beds and cleaning loos. It’ll be good to be back in the real world but bugger winter. Give me 32 degrees any time.