Yorkshire Almanac 2026

Unedited excerpt

If an excerpt is used in the book, it will be shorter, edited and, where applicable, translated.

LETTER XCVII.

L. STERNE.

TO A. L____E, ESQ.

DEAR L____E,

Coxwould, June 7, 1767.

I had not been many days at this peaceful cottage before your letter greeted me with the seal of friendship: and most cordially do I thank you for so kind a proof of your good-will. I was truly anxious to hear of the recovery of my sentimental friend, – but I would not write to enquire after her, unless I could have sent her the testimony without the tax; even how d’yes to invalids, or those that have lately been so, either call to mind what is past or what may return; at least I find it so. I am as happy as a prince, at Coxwould; and I wish you could see in how princely a manner I live: ’tis a land of plenty, I sit down alone to venison, fish, and wild fowl, or a couple of fowls or ducks, with curds, and strawberries, and cream, and all the simple plenty which a rich valley (under Hamilton Hills) can produce; with a clean cloth on my table, and a bottle of wine on my right hand to drink your health. I have a hundred hens and chickens about my yard, and not a parishioner catches a hare or a rabbit or a trout, but he brings it as an offering to me. If solitude would cure a lovesick heart, I would give you an invitation; but absence and time lessen no attachment which virtue inspires. I am in high spirits; care never enters this cottage. – I take the air every day in my post-chaise, with two long-tailed horses, – they turn out good ones; and as to myself, I think I am better upon the whole for the medicines and regimen I submitted to in town.-May you, dear L____E want neither the one nor the other!

Yours truly,

L. STERNE.

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To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.

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Tags

Tags are assigned inclusively on the basis of an entry’s original text and any comment. You may find this confusing if you only read an entry excerpt.

• Chicken (8) W/G ·
• Church of England (94) W/G ·
• 📌Coxwold (6) W/G ·
• Cream (1) W/G ·
• Deer (6) W/G ·
• Duck (3) W/G ·
• Fish (10) W/G ·
• Gastronomy (3) W/G ·
• Hambleton Hills (5) W/G ·
• Hare (5) W/G ·
• North York Moors (9) W/G ·
• Sterne, Laurence (1713-68) (2), Anglican cleric (vicar of Coxwold, 1760-68) and author of novels including The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman and A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy. W/G ·
• Strawberry (3) W/G ·
• Trout (2) W/G ·
• Venison (1) W/G ·
• Wine (7) W/G ·

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To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.

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Similar

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30 July 1882: On his way to play with the Muker church band, Richard Guy of Hill Top Farm climbs over a wall to inspect a fertile heifer

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To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.

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Dates. Malise McGuire has discovered a mention in the press (the Northern Echo? I can’t find it) of this tragedy. It is dated 4 August 1882, so Sunday was 30 July: “On Sunday at Hill Top Farm, near Gunnerside, Richard GUY went out to look at some young cattle and was soon afterwards found in a field dead. His clothes were literally torn to shreds.” I haven’t looked on Ancestry, but this is the Richard Guy born in 1833 at Scar House, Muker, and present in the 1881 census:

70. Hill Top Farm
GUY/Richard S/Head/M/47/Farmer 158 Acres/Yks Muker
GUY/Rosomond/wife/M/47/Farmers wife/Yks Muker
GUY/Thomas/son/U/20/Farmers son/Yks Muker
GUY/Robert J/son/U/17/Farmers son/Yks Muker
GUY/Richard/son//13/scholar/Yks Muker
GUY/Elizebeth/dau//8/scholar/Yks Muker

The anecdote also turns up in abbreviated form, perhaps abstracted from the above, in an outstanding book by Marie Hartley and Joan Ingilby (Hartley 1982).

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