Yearning Hall

When I am out for a wander I do like to find little curiosities, wether it's a chunky crag or cairn or a waterfall tucked away, but this time I found a fab ruin just near the border ridge.

Yearning Hall sits on a hill called Yearning Law and although calling it a hall gives it a sense of grandeur, it was actually just an 18th-century farmhouse.

We found out that the house was lived in by a chap called George Lowes and his family in 1940, but was left unoccupied shortly after.

The building measured 15x5m so would have only contained a few rooms on a single floor.

But where did the word yearning come from?

In the north country dialect 'earning' or 'yerning' meant 'rennet' which is an enzyme-based key ingredient in cheese making, either from the stomach of young ruminants, or plant based.

According to Brockett's Glossary (1846) there is "a plant used in North Tindale for the purpose of curdling milk for cheese called yerning grass".

This plant could have been Butterwort which has an old Scottish name of 'Earning-girse' meaning curdling-plant.

If you do fancy a wander to Yearning Hall then it's a 3.5km walk from the parking area at Buckham's Bridge. However this is a 15km along a tiny road from Alnwinton.

Follow this route, or view on OS Maps.

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Content source: Geograph