Grosmont is strategically situated at the junction of the River Esk and the Murk Esk and dates back to Roman times. The Romans built a road through Grosmont and a fort to protect it. It is also the junction of the Esk Valley Railway between Middlesbrough and Whitby and the North Yorkshire Moors Railway from Pickering. The village is at the bottom of a steep sided valley and road access is steep and narrow, with one particularly narrow hump back bridge limiting the size of vehicles able to access the village, however, the views of the countryside are impressive.

Grosmont has little in the way of evidence of its ancient history. The Priory of Grandimont, founded here around the year 1200 by Johanna Fossard, which by 1394 was known as Grosmont priory, has left no trace.

More recently, during the building of the Whitby to Pickering Railway in 1836, a rich ironstone seam was discovered which extended towards the coast. Some of the current houses in the village were built to house the many miners needed to extract the ore. 100,000 tons were extracted annually and it was carried by rail to Whitby for shipment. The mine lasted until 1871, but the village remained an industrial site with its brickworks producing Grosmont bricks until well into the 1960's.

Following the closure of the Railway between Grosmont and Pickering and through to Rillington Junction, (on the York to Scarborough line), as a result of the Beeching rationalisation plan, the village became a quiet back water with few visitors. But in 1967 a group of farsighted locals founded The North Yorkshire Moors Railway preservation Society and set out their aims to reopen the line as far as Goathland summit. British Railways were persuaded to leave the track in place and fund raising began in earnest to buy not only the track bed, but the rail lines. By 1973 Parliament had granted a light railway order and the Society was renamed, The North Yorkshire Moors Historical Railway Trust.



Grosmont Station

Ryedale County Council, understanding the potential, loaned the Trust the money to buy the rest of the line into Pickering Station. The end result today, is the country's premier, Heritage Steam Railway and its success has led to it becoming a recognised Train Operator able to run on the national rail network, providing through services between Whitby and Pickering and occasionally at special events, between Whitby and Battersby.

Grosmont now has industry again in the form of a locomotive repair depot, where steam locomotives and heritage diesel locomotives can be maintained and repaired. The village also has a traditional public house called The Station Tavern, cafe's on the station and along the main street, as well as an art gallery and a souvenir shop. The traditional Village Co-op looks almost the same today as it did when British Railways closed the adjacent railway back in 1967.

Grosmont, with four platforms has the second largest operational railway station in North Yorkshire. Scarborough has the largest with five platforms, (York station is in the City of York and not in North Yorkshire, so it doesn't count)!