he broken towers of the castle. There is a wide
street, bordered by dark stone buildings, that leads steeply from the
river to the church. The houses are as a rule quite featureless, but we
have learnt to expect this in a county where stone is abundant, for
only the extremely old and the palpably new buildings stand out from
the grey austerity of the average Yorkshire town. In rare cases some of
the houses are brightened with white and cream paint on windows and
doors, and if these commendable efforts became less rare, Pickering
would have as cheerful an aspect to the stranger as Helmsley, which we
shall pass on our way to Rievaulx.

Approached by narrow passages between the grey houses and shops, the
church is most imposing, for it is not only a large building, but the
cramped position magnifies its bulk and emphasizes the height of the
Norman tower, surmounted by the tall stone spire added during the
fourteenth century. Going up a wide flight of steps, necessitated by
the slope of the ground, we enter the church through the beautiful
porch, and are at once confronted with the astonishingly perfect
paintings which cover the walls of the nave. The pictures occupy nearly
all the available wall-space between the arches and the top of the
clerestory, and their crude quaintnesses bring the ideas of the first
half of the fifteenth century vividly before us. There is a spirited
representation of St. George in conflict with a terrible dragon, and
close by we see a bearded St. Christopher holding a palm-tree with both
hands, and bearing on his shoulder the infant Christ. Then comes
Herod's feast, with the King labelled _Herodi_. The guests are
shown with their arms on the table in the most curious positions, and
all the royal folk are wearing ermine. The coronation of the Virgin,
the martyrdom of St. Thomas a Becket, and the martyrdom of St. Edmund,
who is perforated with arrows, complete the series on the north side.
Along the south wall the paintings show the story of St. Catherine of
Alexandria and the seven Corporal Acts of Mercy. Further on come scenes
from the life of our Lord.

The simple Norman arcade on the north side of the nave has plain round
columns and semicircular arches, but the south side belongs to later
Norman times, and has ornate columns and capitals. At least one member
of the great Bruce family, who had a house at Pickering called Bruce's
Hall, and whose ascendency at Guisborough has already been mention