THE NORTH RIDING PROJECT

Even in England there are still valleys so completely shut away from the outside world by their girdle of hills, that one may see an individual life going on in the worn grooves of bygone centuries.  The people do as their early forefathers did, and admit no innovations.  They preserve the same blood, scarcely crossed by inter-marriage with outsiders, the same dialect, customs, prejudices, even the same names.  They carry on the pastoral occupations of their ancestors unchanged, regardless of the bustling life beyond the mountains, and if sometimes a longing to throw themselves into the eager race of the world – of which they catch a distant glimpse from their wild hilltops – disturbs their quiet souls, it is rarely translated into action.

Lane-Poole/North-West, 1903