Month: November 2024
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Robin Hoodâs Bed: Erosion, Myths, and Grouse Shootersâ Wine
Our return journey across the M62 was, unsurprisingly, rather more foggy than the outward. This, coupled with a smidgen of common sense, deterred any whim to revisit Blackstone Edge. Thus, I here is instead another photograph from yesterdayâs wander, of the rock formation bearing the pretentious title of âRobin Hoodâs Bedâ or, to vary the…
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The Aiggin Stone: a Resilient Guidepost of Blackstone Edge
On a damp, somewhat joyless morning, we embarked on a foray up Blackstone Edge, detouring briefly from the misery of the M62 to scale this Pennine hill. Past the summit trig. point and âRobin Hoodâs Bedââan erratic boulder unceremoniously perched there as though in mockeryâwe came upon the Aiggin Stone, a relic with pretensions of…
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Crime, Concealment, and Moral Panic in Newton-under-Roseberry
On the 6th of November, 1847, the Yorkshire Gazette regaled its readers with a dark tale from the village of Newton-under-Roseberry. âConcealment of Child Birth. â On Saturday last, the body of a newly born female child was found in a privy, in the village of Newton-under-Roseberry, by a person named Jackson, who nailed fast…
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The Battle of Brambles: Managing Little Daleâs Wild Side
The gorse, in its garish yellow splendour, provides the only relief to Little Daleâs dreary winter vistaâa scene as lively as a crypt. One marvels that the National Trust, using funds from the estimable Enterprise Neptune scheme, thought it prudent to acquire this rather unremarkable hollow near Saltburn-by-the-Sea from Brough House Farm in 1997. The…
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Raw Impressions: Cleveland Hills Above a Blanket of Mist
Certainly, nothing whatsoever about this view of the Cleveland Hills evokes the word ârecrudescenceââthough it is oddly suited to todayâs general mood. In the 20th century, ârecrudescenceâ came to signify the reappearance of anything thoroughly unpleasant after a period of respiteâwar, plague, outrage, crime. The 18th-century meaning was more viscerally satisfying: wounds âbreaking out afresh,â…
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Cod Beck Reservoir: The Calm Before the Chaos
Ah, the poetic serenity of dawn at Cod Beck Reservoirâa perfect place for natureâs calm to lull you into a false sense of security. Mist drapes over the water as greylag geese glide serenely, trees half-hidden in fog add a touch of mystery, and a skeletal Goat Willow, Iâm guessing here, stands at the waterâs…
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Autumn Leaves and the Forgotten Tradition of Mischief Night
From the village up to Cliff Rigg, the Hall Fields footpath wends its way through this dense copse, and at most times the trees loom rather ominously, as though a scene from some gothic tale. But today they are dressed in the splendour of autumnâs palette. Each leaf, it seems, is vying to display its…
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Reeth RevisitedâMemories of the Aftermath of the 2019 Flood
A day in Swaledale, that picturesque valley of the Yorkshire Dales, seemed promising enough, though the weather was somewhat overcast. I climbed High Harker Hill, naturally, as one does, to gain some view of the world. But coming down, there was that undeniable charm of Reethâa place name clinging on to its roots with a…
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Whisky, Oats, and Onions: The Droversâ Passage through Scarth Nick
In yesterdayâs posting, I told a tale of smugglers darting across the moors, slyly evading the prying gaze of the customs men who, I am sure, looked on in unmitigated fury at their repeated failings. The same wild terrain, it seems, was trampled not only by scoundrels with their wares, but by drovers steering whole…
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Smugglers of the North York Moors
For some inexplicable reason, I find myself riveted by this ruined barn overlooking above the Esk Valley railway. I have taken to photographing it with a slavish devotion, each time I pass, but usually something with more interest has turned up. This barn, apparently, is recorded on the North York Moors historical monuments database, albeit…