Tag: Petwr N Walker

A past to be Pict apart

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The now disused St Hilary’s Church in Picton near Yarm.

This  Saturday (13th January) was St Hilary’s Day and it is said to be the coldest day of the year. Its chilly reputation came about after a severe frost in 1205 which started on 13th January and lasted until 22nd March.  

Reader Jim Ackrill from Picton near Yarm got in touch with a lovely message connected to St Hilary. He said: “I was doing some research into my local parish church (now closed and sold) and came across an article by someone you may know! A certain Nicholas Rhea published the article in the Darlington and Stockton Times on the 13th of January 2012. It interested me as our local church was dedicated to St. Hilary when it was built in 1911.”

My dad’s article explained that St Hilary was born in 315 in Poitiers, a town in France known for its architecture and hill-top setting. Hilary followed the beliefs of his prominent pagan parents until the age of 35 when he became a Catholic priest and pledged to lead a life of abstinence, despite the fact he was already married with a daughter. He was elected Bishop of Poitiers in 353, and travelled extensively visiting the Middle East, Greece, and Italy.

He was known for being outspoken, and his writings upset Emperor Constantine II, leading to him being banished to Phrygia (now in modern central Turkey) and then back to Poitiers. St Augustine refers to him as an illustrious doctor and, as a progressive thinker, was said to be keen to educate children with learning difficulties. St Hilary died in Poitiers on or around 13th January 368 and is known as St Hilary of Poitiers, Pope Pius IX having named him Doctor of the Church in 1851.

Jim Ackrill wonders more about the connection of St Hilary to his home village: “Now this is the interesting information which I discovered. Poitiers is in western France and was founded by the Celtic Pictones tribe (also known as Pictavi or Picts) and which, after Roman influence, became known as Pictavium. As Christianity was officialised across the Roman Empire during the 3rd and 4th centuries, the first Bishop of Poitiers from 350-367 was St. Hilarius (Hilary). The connection between Picton and the Pictones cannot be a coincidence. I believe some well-read cleric connected the two and suggested St Hilary for the church at Picton.”

It is possible that Jim’s theory about how St Hilary’s in Picton came by its name is correct. It was closed to worship in 2004, and hence St Martin’s Church in neighbouring Kirklevington was rededicated to St Martin and St Hilary in 2011, the centenary of the original St Hilary’s Church. The village name has evolved from Pyketon to Pykton, then Pickton to Picton, and has been said to mean ‘peak town’ which would fit in very well with its hilltop location and as such, echoes its French counterpart.

However, there is a possibility that ‘peak town’ is wrong, if an historical link with Poitiers can be established. Could Picton actually come from ‘Picts town’? As Jim says, Poitiers was called ‘Pictavium’ during St Hilary’s lifetime and is believed to mean ‘painted people’, referencing the Gallic Picts’ habit of painting or tattooing their skin.

It could of course just be a remarkable coincidence that Picton and the Pictones have similar names as well as a link to St Hilary. During the reign of Edward 1st (1272 – 1307), the family that owned the village took the name Picton to symbolise their ownership of it and the surrounding land. It is interesting to note that as a youth, King Edward I was heavily influenced by his relatives from the Poitou region of France (known as Pictavia) of which Poitiers was the capital.

It is also worth mentioning the Scottish Picts, a tribe with a ferocious reputation from the far north and east. Like their Gallic cousins they were named by the invading Romans, thanks to their habit of painting their skin to make them seem more ferocious in battle. Although they have links to the French, I think it is unlikely they have any connection to the village of Picton.

There must be a lot more to be discussed in this story, but it will need someone with a bigger and more knowledgeable brain than mine to get to the bottom of it.

Contact me via my webpage at countrymansdaughter.com, or email gazette@gazetteherald.co.uk or dst@nne.co.uk. 

This column appeared in the Darlington & Stockton Times on Friday 12th and the Ryedale Gazette and Herald on Wednesday 10th Jan 2024.

The blessed plough

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The plough has been a fundamental piece of farming equipment for centuries, enabling the population to feed themselves.
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Blessing the plough outside Ripon Cathedral (Photo courtesy of Ripon Cathedral).

I’m sure you know that it is traditional to remove Christmas decorations by the Feast of the Epiphany on 6th January, although it is still debated as to whether you have to take them down before the 6th or on the 6th to avoid inviting bad luck into the house. I’m still unsure which is right.

What you might not know is that the day after is St Distaff’s Day. St Who? I hear you cry. Well, Distaff is no-one and there is no such saint. It actually refers to the cleft stick used by spinners to hold yarn in place and appeared this country in around 1505. St Distaff’s Day was symbolic of women resuming their regular household chores after the 12 days of festive fun. Spinning was an essential skill, and women would spin most evenings, turning raw wool and flax into thread to be used for clothing, footwear, bedding, baskets and for mending all of the above.

St Distaff’s Day precedes the more well-known Plough Monday. This is the first Monday after the Epiphany when the men of the household would resume their labouring duties. In the days before mechanisation, the plough was the most important piece of farming equipment that the community would rely on to enable them to plant crops and feed themselves for the coming year.

In Mediaeval times, small villages would have just one plough to be shared by residents, and a ploughman would carve out each person’s plot in the ‘ridge and furrow’ method of open agriculture. Once the autumn harvest was complete this revered piece of equipment would usually be stored in the local church for the winter. A candle, or ‘plough light’, would be kept permanently burning to protect the plough from any malevolent crop-ruining spirits that might be lurking about.

Then, on Plough Monday this sacred machine would be brought out of hibernation to mark the start of the new agricultural year. It would be blessed by the priest, and the good folk would ask the Lord to grant them a successful growing year ahead. Men would dress up in costumes, similar to that of Mummers or Morris Dancers, and then parade to music through the village, knocking on doors asking for alms. Anyone who declined to give a few coins would likely find that overnight, their front path had been ploughed up. The plough posse would end up at the local inn and spend the rest of the day feasting, drinking and having a merry old time.

Today, it is not uncommon to see this tradition marked on the Sunday before Plough Monday, which is known as Plough Sunday, and I am a bit confused as to when or if one came before the other. Some sources suggest the plough was blessed on the Sunday, and then the parade would take place the next day. Other sources have the events happening on the same day, whether it be the Sunday or the Monday.

The custom has disappeared from many places, but not all, and in our region is marked most notably in Ripon Cathedral (which this year takes place on 14th January), and in my dad’s old stomping ground, Goathland (7th January).

In fact, I was looking at one of my dad’s books, ‘Yorkshire Days’, in which he mentions Plough Sunday and Monday, and also the ‘Goathland Plough Stots’. The Goathland tradition is to bless the plough on the Sunday after the Epiphany, and then follow that up the following Saturday with their ‘Annual Day of Dance’, a traditional sword dance practiced by the Goathland ‘Stots’. ‘Stot’ is an old Yorkshire word for the oxen or bullocks that pulled the plough, and therefore was given to the men who pulled it through the village during the celebrations.

As I was writing this column, the words to ‘There’s a hole in my bucket, dear Liza’ popped into my head. As a young child, I used to be very confused as to why Liza would suggest that Henry mended his holey bucket with straw when the buckets I knew were made of plastic or metal. But it has only now dawned on me that back in the day they’d be made from wood, clay or some kind of woven yarn or straw, and repairs would likely have been with whatever natural material was to hand.

Unless you can think of a better explanation?

This column appeared in the Darlington & Stockton Times on Friday 5th and the Ryedale Gazette and Herald on Wednesday 3rd Jan 2024.