CORNER OF YORKSHIRE:

Wharram Percy

WHARRAM Percy lies next to the track known as The Wolds Way. Once in East Yorkshire, it is now in the administrative area of the North, but it is a very long time indeed since anyone enforced rules or regulations in this little hamlet.

For it is one of Britain’s finest examples of a deserted medieval village, which lost all contact with human inhabitants when the local landlord told them that they were being evicted in the early years of the 16th-century. His reason? He wanted extra space to graze his sheep. One minute they were living a peaceful existence in one of the most beautiful folds of the Yorkshire hills, the next, they were piling their worldly goods on carts, and moving on.

Today not much remains and it’s hard to believe that this was once a community where children played, corn was milled, and where everyday life just went quietly on. Until someone decided that sheep needed more space than men.