Village of the Week: Housing pressures in Sleights but community in the Esk Valley is still thriving

Known locally as Blue Bank, it is so steep, a one in four gradient, there is an escape lane in case you get it wrong - or your car brakes fail.

Thankfully it isn’t needed all that often but it has been known and following floods in November 2016, the escape lane itself escaped.

Two people had to be rescued after seven vehicles got stuck in flood waters which washed 600 tonnes of gravel out of the escape lane, down Blue Bank and into the village of Sleights.

The pair had to be helped by fire-fighters to safety.

The main road in and out of the village had to be closed while the then council worked to clear the debris.

Gullies, manholes and property entrances were blocked for the full length of Coach Road, sandbags were put out and it took a gully emptier, JCBs and high pressure jets to clear it.

The following year, utility company Interserve, agreed that it should foot the bill as it emerged that the floods were caused by damage and obstruction to a series of culverts, which allow water to flow under the road and there had been “inadequacies in utility work that had been undertaken in the months prior to the event”.

However, most journeys here are without such drama and then you are in what is one of the prettiest village scenes - even more so at this time of year as lamposts, houses and shops, when the natural light starts to disappear before tea-time, flicker gently and welcomingly with fairy lights and Christmas decorations.

One of the first things that steps out is the local pub. For years it was run by a local couple when village pubs were proper village pubs before they retired.

It is closed at the moment which is a sad loss of a needed and valued village facility.

Sleights, possibly one of the most mis-pronounced places in the country (it rhymes with ‘heights’) is not without though as it is home to two of Whitby’s most popular family businesses - Radford’s Butchers and Botham’s Bakery - a well as a Spar shop, fish and chip shop, parish church, cabinet makers, hairdressers and a primary school, cricket, football and bowls teams, an antiques dealer and a village hall.

The Sleights Horticultural & Industrial Society show takes place at the cricket pitch each year.

Sleghtesc was first found in a document in 1223 but the village is likely to be older than that as the name possibly has some sort of derision from Esletis and OId Norse language.

As you make your way down Coach Road, you see it is lined with an individual line of former manor houses, mansions, sprawling modern builds, stone cottages and Victorian villas.

Not one will be the same. There are no concrete carbuncles here.

This summer Sleights featured in a list, compiled from the Office of National Statistics, of the most expensive places to live in Yorkshire.

Latest figures, covering the calendar year 2022, for the Scarborough Borough showed Sleights, along with Burniston and Fylingdales being within the most expensive and having an average residential property price of £295,000.

This is a fairly conservative estimate as a terraced house is on at £194,950 and there are some bungalows between £230,000 and just shy of £300,000.

For the houses like the Victorian villas and the elaborate newer builds, architecturally designed to make the most of the light and the views, then half a million might be a better starting point.

The views across the Esk Valley and over to moors villages, such as Grosmont and Aislaby, are quite breathtaking and if you time it right, you may catch a glimpse of the steam train which recreates a historic nostalgia on a daily basis.

Sleights has its own train station and while a regular commuter service train passes and stops at the village, engines from the North Yorkshire Moors Railway also pass but don’t stop as they chug to and from Whitby.

Sleights train station opened to horse-drawn traffic on May 15, 1835 with a full public service operating from June 1835.

The station platforms and the main building opened in 1846.

Not far away is the Salmon Leap hotel, named in relation to its proximity to the River Esk which run through the bottom of Sleights to Ruswarp and feeds into the sea at Whitby.

The Esk is the only river in North Yorkshire to flow directly into the sea but also due to its rural course (around 28 miles through the Eskdale valley) it is one of the cleanest.

That provides ideal conditions for salmon and sea-trout to thrive.

The bridge is a good place to spot the salmon leaping in the river as here and Ruswarp has weirs which allow the fish to leap in the air as they travel back up the water-course as adult fish to spawn on the same stretch of river that they hatched.

There is currently uncertainty in the village about the future of St Oswald’s House which is being run as a Christian retreat centre.

It has formed part of an estate that is owned by The Sisters of the Holy Paraclete who have occupied a convent here since 1915.

The complex, valued at £1.15m includes a chapel, three Grade II-listed cottages, two self-catering properties, outbuildings, gardens and grounds in a 15-acre plot. Overall there are 26 bedrooms.

Agents Boulton Cooper of Malton describe St Oswald’s House as having potential for ‘alternative uses’, prompting worries it could be turned into holiday accommodation when there is a need for affordable housing for local families to remain in the village.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​