The Dog Geordie Trod

Distance: 17-miles (circular)
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Living in the open since childhood, taught the ancient ways of the green lanes and chalk pits by an old man of the Wolds named Thackery, Dog Geordie was the last of the male Wold Rangers, Croom Mabel, or Mary Murray, outlived him by three years.  His tales both those passed down to him from his fellow Rangers now long gone and his own experiences have evolved into rural folklore, creating an indelible, unique and lasting mark on the history of the beautiful and wild landscape that is the Yorkshire Wolds.

A true gentleman of the Wolds, he lived this life through choice, choosing the freedom of the lanes and a warm loose box for shelter in summer and visiting the ‘Spike’ or workhouses of Driffield, Malton and York for a bit of respite in the winter months.  An accomplished countryman, he would bring pheasant to the drumming up, the communal feast regularly enjoyed by the Rangers, without having fired a shot…using the hair from a horses tail coiled on the land and covered in grain, it wasn’t long before a hungry pheasant would approach and find its long claws knotted up and trapped in the horse hair.

Accompanied by his lurcher, Dog Geordie was a familiar site on Market Place in Driffield, the starting and finishing place of all the Wold Ranger Trods.

Other than a nine year interlude from 1939 to 1948, joining up at the start of the Second World War, Dog Geordie had lived and breathed the green lanes of the Wolds, side by side with his fellow Rangers until by 1987 and residing in a caravan near the chalk pit at Sledmere, he was the last male Ranger of his kind.  

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Wolds

Dog Geordie

Horsehair Jack