Month: March 2025
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The Governmentâs Proposals to Curb Heather Burning
Gisborough Moor, from across Sleddale, is marked by neat, rectangular patches of scorched heather. These are âswiddens,â the product of controlled burning, a practice designed to create the perfect environment for grouse. The idea is simple: burn the old heather, let fresh shoots grow, and produce an abundance of birds ready to be shot in…
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A Walk on Ilkley Moor: Wind, Rock Art, and a Mild Sense of Betrayal
A walk âOn Ilkla Moorâ, though not âBaht âat,â as I had the good sense to wear a buff. The wind was still rather sharp. Ilkley Moor, an eastern limb of the Pennines, sits between the Wharfe and Aire valleys. This expanse of rough moorland is littered with relics of prehistoric activity. Chief among them…
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Salts Mill: Industry, Philanthropy, and an Uncomfortable Truth
The River Aire spills over a weir past Salts Mill, a vast textile factory that was the sole reason for the existence of the so-called âmodel villageâ of Saltaire. Both the mill and the village were the brainchild of Sir Titus Salt (1803â1876), a man famed for his paternalistic attitude towards his workforce. In what…
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Surveying the Past Before the Grouse Take Over
The final day of trudging around Brown Hill, dutifully noting the remains of Bronze Age cairnfields, settlements, and funerary monuments. By Monday, the moor must be left undisturbed so the Grouse can multiply, ensuring there are enough targets for the guns on the Glorious Twelfth. The weather, as ever, was obliging. No rain was forecast,…
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Lesser Celandine: Poetry, Pollinators, and Piles
Lesser celandine is a welcome sight, provided one enjoys squinting at small yellow flowers. In a hailstorm, it folds itself up, retreating like a weary thing, as Wordsworth put it in The Lesser Celandine. Wordsworth is better known for his poem about daffodils, but he was apparently more enamoured with this unassuming plant, composing three…
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Lake Greenhow: A Forgotten Relic of the Ice Age
Yesterdayâs post led me to glaciers, glacial lakes, and the like. At Botton Head, my imagination ran riot. Difficult as it is to picture now, 10,000 years ago, a glacier covered the Tees Valley before me. The ice sheet, it is well-known, never quite managed to smother the North York Moors. So, naturally, I wondered…
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Newtondale: A Gorge Too Big for Its Stream
North Dale sits at the top end of Newtondale, a gorge that stretches all the way to Pickering. Newtondale is an oddity, or so everyone says, because the little Pickering Beck, which now trickles through it, could never have gouged out such a deep, narrow valley. At its tightest points, the valley is only 500…
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Mouldwarps, Misconceptions, and Mass Extermination
Only the other day, we were marvelling at the sheer number of molehills littering the fields this year. Which, naturally, means an abundance of molesâor, if one prefers their grander, more traditional name, âmouldwarps,â an old English term meaning âearth-thrower.â I remarked that their presence must indicate rich soil teeming with earthworms. The so-called âgentlemen…
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On this day in 1933, Germany passed the Enabling Act
Also known as the âLaw to Remedy the Distress of People and Reich,â the act was a charmingly titled law that, in reality, handed Hitler absolute power and turned Germany into a totalitarian dictatorship. Yes, the âGesetz zur Behebung der Not von Volk und Reichââa masterclass in euphemism. A harmless little law that merely allowed…
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Toads and ToadiesâSpanghew and Sycophants
I came across this small fellow today. Brushes with nature are always a delight, especially when they happen out of the blue, so there was no real competition for todayâs photograph. Toads, as everyone ought to know, are entirely harmless. They rid gardens of unwanted insects and yet, for centuries, have been maligned as vile…