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Low Road, Raincliffe Woods 1922

Image reproduced from original auction catalogue

Toll Gate at Lady Ediths Drive 1922.

Image  reproduced from original auction catalogue

“ (The Trust) Could not allow the wonderful woods under any circumstances whatsoever, almost unexampled in the wealth of birdlife and wonderful variety of trees and plants that made interest to the naturalists to go out of there hands”

The above quote is taken from the Scarborough Evening News dated 6th July 1925

“The Trust”

Approximately 1860 the woods which were then under the ownership of the Earl of Londesborough were more or less replanted .

Following his death the whole of the 2,508 acre sporting & agricultural estate known as the Raincliffe Estate was put up for sale and was subsequently purchased by a West Riding timber merchant with the intention of clear felling the timber and selling off the land.

The pending destruction of Raincliffe so incensed a group of local business men that in 1925 they, C.C.Graham, George Rowntree and Arnold Wallis, formed “The Trust” and bought the woodland back to ensure it’s survival.

These were the original “ Friends of Raincliffe Woods” for, without their intervention, Raincliffe would most certainly have been destroyed.