Around this time of year we can expect to see two different kinds of thrush which have joined us for the winter and who will remain until sometime in spring, generally late March or into April.

Then they will return to Northern Europe where they will breed later in the year. In fact, some may halt in Scotland to nest, this apparently being a fairly new practice when they are returning to their very northern pastures.

The birds are redwings and fieldfares. Both are members of the thrush family and have the traditional speckled breasts of some members of that group of birds. The Redwing is the lesser of the two in size and is a fraction smaller than our song thrush but easily identifiable with distinctive red splashes of colour beneath its wings and on its flanks. These are very clearly seen when redwings are in flight.

Once here, they will mingle to feed with small flocks of other members of the thrush family such as song thrushes, mistle thrushes and blackbirds but perhaps also joining flocks of visiting fieldfares.

Flocks of redwings are perhaps better known due to their love of ripe red berries especially those of the hawthorn, rowan trees and some ornamental garden shrubs.

Not far from our house there is a large clump of hawthorn trees and this is a regular haunt of both incoming redwings and fieldfares who can soon strip a tree of its fruit, and then spread the seeds over a wide area – which is how nature reproduces itself.

Fieldfares are slightly larger than our native song thrushes, almost the size of a mistle thrush, but with very distinctive plumage which, in flight, looks very light coloured on the under-parts. Its breast is speckled and it has a soft chestnut-brown back but its tail is black with distinctive grey patches on its rump and head. Fieldfares tend to move in flocks and will feed with other members of the thrush family to enjoy a varied diet of insects, grubs and fruit, and although they love the bright red berries of autumn, they also relish windfall apples.

When discussing thrushes, we tend to overlook the mistle thrush which, despite its larger size, greyish plumage and boldly speckled breast, is not so frequently noticed as the song thrushes in our gardens and woodlands. At this time of year, however, it can make itself very prominent by singing from a lofty tree during the winter. It was once thought to herald winter storms by its song, but among country folk it is still widely known as the storm cock and does seem to sing from the highest bare branch it can find. This tends to make it very prominent when it sings but experts believe its strong voice lacks the quality of its better known cousins, the song thrush and blackbird. 

Not many people will know this, but today, November 7, is the feast day of St Willibrod. He was born in 658 somewhere in Yorkshire which was then part of Northumbria and educated at the monastery of Ripon by the man who became St Wilfred. When Wilfred travelled to Rome to study his faith, Willibrod left Ripon and travelled to Ireland where he was ordained a priest in 688. From here, he travelled to Rome.

In 690, after receiving a blessing from the Pope, he travelled to Friesland in the Netherlands with eleven missionaries, all within the protection of King Pepin. Willibrord made a second pilgrimage to Rome in 695 when he was consecrated by the Pope as the Archbishop of Utrecht. This enabled him to found an English colony of evangelists in that region. His links with the Papacy enabled him to make far-reaching changes and he created a solid base for his missionary work in that part of Europe.

In around 700 he established a monastery at Echternach in Luxemberg but civil unrest in Friesland persuaded him to travel to Denmark and Thuringia, a state within what became Germany. There he established a system known as chorepiscopi which meant “country bishops” and its role was to assist the evangelists in that area.

The modern consensus about Willibrord’s work is that he achieved a rather poor record of conversions but he did establish some very sound foundations for future missionary work.

Willibrord died at Echternach at the great age of 81 and is buried there. He has long been revered in that region and since the Middle Ages there have been celebrations of his life with dancing and partying in the streets and processions to his tomb at Whitsuntide.

Willibrord became known as The Missionary of the Netherlands but it seems he is not so widely known here. In art, he is depicted with a church in his hands and, due to his ability to multiply wine, is shown with a barrel at his feet.

Castle and palace

It is difficult to imagine Northallerton having both a castle and a palace but one of my Ordnance Survey maps dated 1955 shows the sites of both. They stood to the west of the present High Street, roughly between the parish church and the main North-South railway route. If the location of the palace has been largely forgotten, memories of the ancient castle survive in the name of Castle Hills.

The castle seems to have been erected by Bishop Geoffrey Rufus, a bishop of Durham during the reign of Henry I. Its construction was around 1130-1133 and its purpose was to protect the inhabitants of the town. Some forty years later, the castle was extended by Bishop Pudsey of Durham who wanted the building to be a tribute to him and his work.

When Pudsey lost favour with the king, Henry II, Henry ordered the fine castle to be demolished. Its short life ended in 1177, and nothing remained except the moat. At the time Bishop Hugh Pudsey, who was known as the Fighting Bishop of Durham, surrendered to the Crown Northallerton Castle and two more which he owned. The King ordered that the Northallerton Castle be destroyed. Its stones were eventually used to construct a splendid palace very close to the original site and this was used frequently by visiting sovereigns. Some reports suggested that the castle and the palace were indistinguishable from one another.

Nonetheless, it does seem that a century after its destruction, the castle was replaced by a splendid palace which was built slightly closer to the site of the present parish church but this was in ruins by 1696. It was then described as weather-beaten, demolished with age and the ruins of time. I believe parts of its former grounds were used as Northallerton cemetery.

In 1748, however, a local poet called Miss A. Crosfield wrote what is described as a descriptive poem about Castle Hills. It makes reference to the views from that high ground and paints a somewhat romantic view and history of that part of Northallerton. And any history of Northallerton must include an account of the Battle of the Standard but also the quality of its home-produced ales, said to be rather strong.