Transcribed from – Richmondshire,  Edmund Bogg c. 1908 pp. 652 – 655

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The village of Thoralby (Thorald’s town) stands on the east end of the northern slope of Bishopdale. In 1360 a chantry chapel was built here by Marie de Neville, Lady of Middleham: it was suppressed at the dissolution of the monasteries; the site is still known as Chapel Close. Littleburn House, now a farmstead, was for some time the residence of Matthew, fourth Lord Rokeby. The outlook from the garden up the rich green valet is very beautiful. On the bridge is to be seen a Latin inscription.

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TRANSLATION.

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IN GOD THE ONLY SECURITY.

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This Egerian Bridge, at the expense of the neighbourhood thrown over this river, awkwardly narrow and at times most dangerous, in memory of peace and security, is, under God, dedicated to Wellington. O chieftain, courageous arbiter of war, who bringest peace, as patron of this bridge, receive floods of this bounding water. May the Great Ocean take these floods of the fountain, and may this arch to thy triumph Shine. Here also at Sorrell Sykes for some time dwelt the well-known Mrs. Montague (the Blue Socking Queen), at whose house in London the famous “Blue Stocking Club” was held. Her maiden was Robinson, and she founded the club to encourage “Rational Conversation” (a most useful thing now as then, some may say). It is said the term “blue stocking” had its origin in the wearing of blue stockings by one of the club’s most scholarly pedants, Dr. Benjamin Stillingfleet. Mrs. Montague herself was one of Fortune’s favourites, rich, handsome and clever, and a wit to boot with hardly a sorrow to embitter her days. No wonder her society and friendship were held in high esteem of the great men and women of her time. Her ‘literary’ breakfast parties were centres of intellectual life in London. Born in York, 1720, apart from her “Dale” life, in Retreat for rest, her husband had a County Seat at Alverthorpe, so that the Blue Stocking Queen can fairly enough be claimed as one of the Yorkshire Worthies. The inhabitants of Thoralby received much benefit by those distinguished visitors dwelling in their neighbourhood. Near to the village in Heaning Gill, locally known as the Silver Chain, a succession of waterfalls and cascades bursting from the wooded heights, and silvering through scenes of remarkable beauty to the vale below. Maude says that when viewed from the bottom, the stream appears like a silver chain, whose highest link seems connected with the clouds descending through a display of lowering branches and shading foliage, which in proportion to the thick or thinner weaving of the boughs, now bursts and then twinkles in a manner most captivating.