St Gregory's Minster and Kirkdale Cave

St Gregory's Minster stands alone in a wooded valley near Kirkbymoorside, and above its door is a sundial inscribed around 1060 recording that Orm Gamalson rebuilt the church in the days of King Edward and Earl Tostig. It is the most important Saxon inscription in the country. A short walk up the lane, Kirkdale Cave was found in 1821 packed with the bones of hyenas, hippos, elephants and rhinos, evidence that changed how the Victorians understood the age of the earth. Hodge Beck beside the church disappears underground in dry weather.