The vivid pinks of Rosebay Willowherb blaze across summer landscapes, yet most pass them by. Known as Fireweed, it is often the first plant to reclaim burnt ground.
That was not always the case. The Georgians treated it as a rarity, grown in gardens rather than spotted in the wild. Even in 1853, the Reverend C.A. Johns described it as “not often met with in a wild state, but common in gardens.”
Why it spread so widely remains something of a puzzle. Railways helped, carrying its seeds on the slipstreams. Each plant releases thousands of tiny parachutes. Two world wars accelerated its rise. Woodland felling during the First, and bombed-out cities in the Second, gave it plenty of ground to colonise. In wartime London, it earned a new name—Bombweed.
This view shown is from Rye Hill, as the footpath from Ayton enters Cliff Ridge Wood. On the left, behind a cluster of outbuildings, stands Undercliffe Hall, built in 1873 by William Jones, founder of the first chemical works on Teesside. His factory—once near the present site of Middlesbrough F.C.’s Riverside Stadium—produced alkalis.
The hall is built of whinstone, a hard basalt from the Cliff Rigg quarries, better known for road setts than buildings. Leeds streets were said to be cobbled with stone from Great Ayton. For construction, it was too costly.
Jones, a Quaker from Ruthin in North Wales, would have known Teesside’s other Quaker industrialists. He founded his works in Middlesbrough in 1859, prospered, and in 1880 sold the business to Samuel Sadler. A few years later, probably unwell, Jones left for London.
Undercliffe Hall housed prisoners of war during the Second World War. One left his mark on Roseberry’s summit. His graffiti reads “PoW, HW, 1947, Essen.” The ‘W’ might be Wilhelm or Walther—both remembered as farm workers. I have seen the photograph, but the carving itself still evades me.
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