4 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF YORK AND DISTRICT 



with the raising of Hvestock, primarily cattle (i.e. mixed farming in the 

 fullest sense), the vale contrasts strongly with the highlands framing it ; 

 with the Pennines and North York Moors devoted mainly to sheep, and 

 with the Wolds characterised by a rural economy based on sheep and 

 barley. Probably the 200-foot contour marks, as near as may be, the 

 limits of the essential vale region to east and west. On the east there is 

 a real break of slope at this height and a fairly noticeable change in land 

 utilisation. Westwards, however, the chosen contour only indicates the 

 beginning of a foothill zone, 5 to 10 miles wide, spreading to the Pennines 

 proper. Over this zone, from place to place, farming allied to that of 

 the vale persists, thanks to the red loams derived from the Magnesian 

 Limestone on which the zone is developed. 



Along its southern margin the vale is about 30 miles wide, and this 

 width is fairly well maintained as far north as York, i.e. over the southern 

 half of the region. Northwards it tapers and in the latitude of Ripon 

 becomes suddenly constricted to a corridor less than half as wide as in 

 the south. 



Within, the boundaries given, the Vale of York embraces rather more 

 than 1,000 square miles, the whole of which is less than 200 feet and much 

 of it below 50 feet above sea-level. Developed basically by river action on 

 rocks, mainly sandstones, of the Triassic series, the vale is covered by 

 deposits of glacial and fluviatile origin, varying in depth from 25 to 

 90 feet, and the underlying rocks only appear as isolated outcrops in one 

 or two places. 



In a bird's-eye view the floor of the vale appears monotonously level ; 

 in detail it is frequently undulating or hummocky, but the only coherent 

 relief features of real significance are two terminal moraines which extend 

 across it as crescentic ridges some fifty feet above the general level. Of 

 these the more noteworthy one runs from Sand Hutton in the east through 

 Upper Helmsley, Grimston Smithy and Heslington to York, and then loops 

 south-westward through Copmanthorpe, Bilbrough and Healaugh with 

 minor ridges straggling towards Tadcaster and Wetherby. The other, 

 lying a little further south, observes a rough parallelism to the first and 

 stretches from Stamford Bridge through Newton, Sutton-on-Derwent, 

 Wheldrake and Escrick to Stillingfleet, then dies down westwards through 

 Acaster Selby and Bolton Percy. They afford dry going above the marsh 

 and floods, and from time immemorial the most important transverse 

 route in the vale has been identified with the more northerly ridge. 



The vale is watered, rather than drained, by the Ouse and its tribu- 

 taries. The Ouse collects the drainage of an area four times as large 

 as the vale, and all its tributaries save one flow from the Pennines to its 

 right bank. The exception is the Derwent, which joins the Ouse after 

 that river has received all its Pennine affluents except the Aire, i.e. not 

 far above the head of the Humber estuary. All the rivers of the vale are 

 prone to overflow in certain reaches, but the Derwent is notorious in this 

 connection. The extent and peculiar shape of its catchment area — -this 

 covers some 800 square miles and includes most of the North York Moors 

 and the Vale of Pickering — causes the Derwent to swell very rapidly after 

 rain (its volume may be quadrupled within 24 hours), and this, combined 



