The Gypsey Race is a winterbourne stream that rises to the east of

Wharram-le-Street Wharram-le-Street is a village and former civil parish, now in the parish of Wharram, in the Ryedale district of North Yorkshire, England. Until the 1974 local government reorganisation Wharram-le-Street was part of the East Riding of Yorkshir ...

and flows through the villages of Duggleby,

Kirby Grindalythe __NOTOC__ Kirby Grindalythe is a village and civil parish in the Ryedale district of North Yorkshire, England. It is situated about south-east of Malton. The village lies in the Great Wold Valley and the course of the winterbourne stream the G ...

West Lutton West Lutton is a village in the Ryedale district of North Yorkshire, England. It is situated approximately east from Malton, and within the Yorkshire Wolds. It was historically part of the East Riding of Yorkshire until 1974. The hamlet of ...

, East Lutton, Helperthorpe,

Weaverthorpe Weaverthorpe is a village and civil parish in the Ryedale district of North Yorkshire, England. It is south-west of Scarborough. History Bronze Age settlements have been found at nearby Cowlam, which is to the south. It was one of the leading ...

, Butterwick, Foxholes, Wold Newton, Burton Fleming,

Rudston Rudston is a small village and civil parish in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It is situated between Driffield and Bridlington approximately west of Bridlington, and lies on the B1253 road. The Gypsey Race (an intermittent stream) ru ...

and Boynton. The stream flows into the

North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. An epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian S ...

Bridlington Bridlington is a coastal town and a civil parish on the Holderness Coast of the North Sea in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It is about north of Hull and east of York. The Gypsey Race enters the North Sea at its harbour. The 2011 Cen ...

harbour. It is the most northerly of the Yorkshire chalk streams. The Gypsey Race rises in the

Great Wold Valley The Great Wold Valley is the largest and broadest of the valleys cutting into the Yorkshire Wolds in northern England. It carries the Gypsey Race, an intermittent stream, which runs from its source near Wharram-le-Street eastwards along and throu ...

through a series of springs and flows intermittently between Duggleby and West Lutton where it runs underground in the chalk aquifer before re-surfacing in Rudston. It has been known during very wet conditions for the stream to re-appear at Wold Newton some north-west of Rudston. Water from the aquifer running between West Lutton and Wold Newton also heads south to re-appear at Elmswell feeding West Beck and the

River Hull The River Hull is a navigable river in the East Riding of Yorkshire in Northern England. It rises from a series of springs to the west of Driffield, and enters the Humber Estuary at Kingston upon Hull. Following a period when the Archbishops of ...

. According to folklore, when the Gypsey Race is flowing in flood (The Woe Waters), bad fortune is at hand. It was in flood in the year before the

Great Plague The Black Death (also known as the Pestilence, the Great Mortality or the Plague) was a bubonic plague pandemic occurring in Western Eurasia and North Africa from 1346 to 1353. It is the most fatal pandemic recorded in human history, causi ...

of 1665–66, the restoration of Charles II (1660) and the landing of William of Orange (1688), before both

World War One World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

and

World War Two World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

, plus the bad winters of 1947 and 1962. The stream also badly flooded the village of Burton Fleming in 2012 when the water was deep in places. Villagers in Boynton have an annual duck race on the stream in May. Hundreds of yellow plastic ducks are paid for and race the Race in aid of funds for the village hall.

Pictures

File:Gypsey Race Burton Fleming 5 (Nigel Coates).jpg, Burton Fleming File:Gypsey Race Burton Fleming 3 (Nigel Coates).jpg, Burton Fleming

Notes

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gypsey Race Rivers of North Yorkshire Rivers of the East Riding of Yorkshire Yorkshire Wolds