Month: August 2024
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Low Slitt Lead Mine, Weardale
This is what’s left of the Low Slitt Lead Mine, once one of the biggest mines in the North Pennines. The mine had a long history, with lead ore extraction going on as early as two centuries before it really took off in the early 1700s, thanks to the efforts of the Sir William Blackett…
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90 Metres of Progress: The Curious Case of a New Bridleway
It is a curious thing, is it not, that the powers-that-be, in their infinite wisdom, believed they could neatly parcel up the English countryside like so many slices of cake, each path and bridleway served with a side of bureaucracy. Under the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act of 1949, a grand endeavour…
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The Valais Blacknose: A Woolly Aristocrat of the Alps
Imagine, if you will, a sheep so hardy that it has been roaming about the Swiss mountains since the 1400s. Enter the Valais Blacknose, or, for those who fancy a bit of local colour, the Walliser Schwarznasenschaf. These creatures, bred for the Alpine chill, sport a thick, white fleece that allows them to strut about…
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Roseberryâs Reckoning â Rainbow’s End
The small but iconic Roseberry Topping, the crown jewel of the Cleveland Hills, offers itself as the venue for what many consider to be an annual spectacle of human folly: a race up and down its steep slopes, commencing from the village of Newton-under-Roseberry. This brief but brutal course, infamous for its lung-searing ascent followed…
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The British School of Great Ayton: A Historical Walkthrough
It’s pretty rare to get a clear view of any of Great Ayton’s old buildings without some car or other parked in the way. Take the village library, for exampleânow known as the Discovery Centre since the community took it over. Originally, this building was the British School, set up to educate the poorer children…
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Roseberryâs Witches and the New Myths We Embrace: A Continuum of Credulity
According to the quaint tales of yesteryear, Roseberry Topping was once a preferred haunt of witches. Picture, if you will, three Ayton men, trembling with fright, witnessing a trio of broomstick-riding hags circling the summit and executing some arcane ritual, while sorrowful wails echoed through the night. The villagers, in their infinite wisdom, deduced that…
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The White Flint Legacy of Castleton
At the crest of an old tramway incline from the former silica quarries, once the workings of the Sheffield-based firm J. Grayson Lowood & Co. Ltd., one gazes across the Esk valley. Just off-centre in the distance lies the looming hump of Castleton Rigg, climbing to the highest point of the âFat Moors.â The village…
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From Blakey Ridge to Hutton le Hole
The North York Moors, with their picturesque dales, lure photographers like moths to a candle. However, lurking between these dales are the âriggsââor ridgesâseldom graced by the eyes of admirers, yet bearing the heavy burden of being the ancient arteries of communication since time immemorial. Todayâs photograph shows the southern end of Blakey Ridge, shortly…
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Echoes of Industry â The Uncertain Future of Bransdale Mill
Nearly everyone who lays eyes on Bransdale Mill is plagued by the same inquiry: What on earth is to be done with it? When the Feversham family graciously handed over Bransdale and its forlorn mill to the National Trust in 1968, the building was little more than a crumbling relic. The roof had collapsed, the…
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Nature’s Nightmare: The Environmental Impact of Pheasant Shooting
A jaunt in the countryside typically leaves one with an idyllic sense of peace, a quaint communion with nature. But this morning, I encountered a rather more disquieting spectacle. A bevy of young pheasants, dozens of them, darting about with all the coordination of those small, ravenous Compsognathids from “Jurassic Park.” These birds, though one…