From the starting point at Gribdale Gate car park the walk soon reaches Captain Cook's Monument on Easby Moor. From this viewpoint the panorama includes the village of Marton where Cook was born (set in a park with an excellent nearby museum), two miles north-west to Great Ayton, and across the plain to the south-west where the Cleveland Hills rise to 450 metres above sea level (Carlton Bank, Cringle Moor, Cold Moor, Hasty Bank, and Urra Moor, the highest point of the North York Moors). To the north is the peak of Roseberry Topping and Great Ayton Moor.
Cook was educated, probably until he was 12, at the Michael Postgate School (where an outside staircase leads to the upper story housing the Captain Cook Schoolroom Museum). Airy Holme Farm became the Cook family home in 1735, where sheep and cattle grazed steeper pastures and crops grew in level fields. In 1755 James Cook senior built a cottage in Great Ayton bearing the inscription 'JG' with 'C' above for James and Grace Cook; the site is now marked by an obelisk, while the cottage itself was dismantled brick by brick (each numbered, placed in 253 packing cases, and including its creeper) and re-erected in Fitzroy Gardens, Melbourne, Australia in 1934.
Unveiled on 12 May 1997 on High Green is a statue depicting James Cook at the age of 16 looking towards Staithes where he first felt the lure of the sea, commissioned by Hambleton District Council and sculpted by Nicholas Dimbleby.
Great Ayton's name derives from Old English Ea-tun, meaning 'river farm', traversed by the River Leven (a tributary of the River Tees). The climb to the summit of Roseberry Topping provides a remarkable viewpoint — nicknamed the 'Middlesbrough Matterhorn' — looking north across the sprawling expanse of Teesside.
In 1736 when Cook's family moved to Airey Holme Farm, young James took time off work to climb Roseberry Topping, giving him his first taste for adventure and exploration. Visible from miles away, it was long used as a fixed navigational point by sailors and farmers. From Roseberry Topping it is a short walk along a stretch of the Cleveland Way National Trail back to the start.
Acknowledgment: Text derived from the Out and Out Series; Discovering the Countryside on Foot. Pictures courtesy of Wikipedia.
