April in Ryedale (From Gazette & Herald)

April in Ryedale

Reader Steven Welford has supplied us with the words to this song which were written by a former Lady Lumley's school head master, F Austin Hyde.

Rising Sun, Peep O' Day and the two others mentioned in the refrain, were the names of farms in the Cropton area.

From Lastingham to Hartoft, it's cold enough for snow,

And over Appleton-le-Moors, the chill north-easters blow.

But down past Hutton-in-the-Hole, skylarks are on the wing,

Where Cropton's viewly farmsteads sing out their song of spring.

Rising Sun, Flow'r o' May, Cuckoo Nest, Peep O' Day.

Long ere the strange clad townsman thro' Pickering came to hike,

Some spot in bonny Ryedale bred once a poet Tyke.

May Farndale's fairest daffies nod cheerily o'er his tomb

Who named these Yorkshire farmsteads to banish winter's gloom.

Rising Sun, Flow'r o' May, Cuckoo Nest, Peep O' Day.

Updated: 09:46 Thursday, April 08, 2004