Hunter's Hill

Designed by the architect Alfred Waterhouse for Sir Joseph Pease, Bart., M.P., a nineteenth century Teesside ironmaster and industrialist. Pease had Hutton Hall built as his country pile in 1866 which even included its own private railway station on the North Eastern Railway at Hutton Gate. The Pease money came from the railways, coal and iron, built up over three generations. In 1902 however the Pease was almost bankrupted in a banking crash forcing the sale of the hall. It was left uninhabited and was used during the Spanish Civil War to house Spanish nuns and Basque refugees. During the Second World War it was requisitioned for military use. It has now been converted and divided up for residential. Additional info.on Sir Joseph Pease (from my blog Link ): When the Hutton Hall estate — the home Sir Joseph Whitwell Pease — was put on the market in 1903, it was described as ”a singularly beautiful and truly valuable property, situated in a rich and fertile valley …. comprising about 1,629 acres, mostly and comprising a distinguished family mansion in the domestic Gothic style, seated in a well-wooded park of 230 acres (lake and boat-house), having beautiful natural surroundings, with wooded slopes extending up to the noble range of the Cleveland Hills“. It was offered, along with his other estates of Pinchinthorpe House, Nunthorpe Hall, and Morton, and farms at Galley Hill, and Ayton Bank, as a result of the collapse of his banking firm of J. and J. W. Pease. A far cry from 18 years earlier when Pease had given away his niece and ward, Beatrice Pease on her marriage to Viscount Lymington, eldest son of the Earl and Countess of Portsmouth in the company of many of the high echelons of Victorian society. The reception was held in Pease’s “town residence in Kensington Palace-gardens“. Probably not related to the ultimate demise of his bank, although the damage to his reputation would not have helped, was Pease’s embroilment with his niece in what was to become known as the Portsmouth Affair. Pease and several other family members were trustees of the marriage settlement of Beatrice and of the property bequeathed to her in the will of her father, the late Edward Pease, Sir Joseph’s brother. On her marriage, Beatrice and her husband had agreed to a highly complicated financial arrangement involving the formation of new companies and transfer of shares in which Pease and the other trustees purchased her interests. But the expected return had not materialised and Beatrice, by now the Countess of Portsmouth, successfully took the trustees to court to set aside the arrangement. The Court found that a full and fair disclosure had not been made, doubted the assertion that commercial and industrial depression as one of the reasons why it had been impossible to realise the estate, and disbelieved the statement that it was a fair and reasonable price. Sir Joseph was amongst those giving evidence in the hearing but contradictions with correspondence and other trustees, only made matters worse. His reputation was in tatters. Sir Joseph Whitwell Pease died later in the year of the sale of Hutton Hall, 1903, aged 75.

Looking east towards Highcliff Nab.

Semi derelict farm buildings at the side of Home Farm.

One of two groups of attractive trees in the fields below Bousdale Woods.

At this point the path is just within the boundary of the extensive woodland that drops down towards Hutton Village. In the distance ahead is the North Sea, probably a significant view for anyone walking the long distance route.

The point where the Cleveland Way diverges from an ancient track that crosses the moor from Hutton towards Kildale. There's a section here which is flagged, one of many such sections across the Cleveland Hills where there is heavy pedestrian use.

Catholic church adjoining a school of the same denomination. There are regional links with the seventh century missionary Paulinus, as he was the first Bishop of York and was reputed to have baptised people in the Swale at Topcliffe.

The main street of the town with the centre ahead.

The public bridleway across Guisborough Moor.

Guisborough Woods.

Seen from a train, Raven Q6 0-8-0 No. 63389 (pre-1946 No. 2232, built 12/17, withdrawn 12/65) is seen shunting.