Out & About …

… on the North York Moors, or wherever I happen to be.

A wide-angle, eye-level shot of a vast moorland under a bright blue sky with wispy white clouds. In the foreground, dense, reddish-brown heather and golden-yellow grasses dominate the landscape. To the right, a small, grassy green mound rises slightly above the surrounding terrain, marked by a thin white pole. A small, still pool of water reflects the sky in a hollow to the left of the mound. The horizon is flat and distant, showing more rolling moorland under the clear morning light.

In Search of a Broch, Finding a Bog

My mission today was to chase down a tiny mystery. On the O.S. map it appeared as two neat black circles, concentric, barely a millimetre across and quietly absent from the legend. Naturally this would not do. The puzzle was set by a friend, so thanks to Lenny for the nudge that sent me off down another rabbit hole.

A wide-angle, eye-level photograph of a small pond or marshy pool set within a flat, moorland landscape. In the foreground, numerous tall, dry bulrushes with brown cylindrical heads poke out of the dark, still water. Patches of green grasses and a small, thin shrub grow within and around the pool. The background shows a low horizon of brownish-green moorland under an overcast, pale grey sky.
The unmapped pond in 2006.

I do not often wander the moors south of Scaling Dam Reservoir. The photo archive shows a visit about twenty years ago, when I blundered onto a (then) unmapped pond not far from today’s curiosity and also not far from one that the Ordnance Survey did bother to record. Before suspicions arise, I knew exactly where I was.

My wife then spotted that the symbol matched the one used for brochs in Scotland1For example at Mousa, HU 45739 23665. That raised an eyebrow. An undiscovered broch on Easington High Moor would be quite the find, and one imagines the history books shuffling nervously.

So, on a day nothing like yesterday, bright skies overhead and Eskdale sulking below smothered by low cloud, I went off from Danby Beacon in search of glory.

Glory turned out to be a pond-cum-bog sitting inside the remains of a circular earth bund. No broch, no revelation, just damp ground doing what damp ground does best. While there, I paid a visit to the mapped pond nearby, which at least had the decency to contain a bit more water.

A wide-angle, eye-level photograph of a vast, open moorland under a bright blue sky with wispy white clouds. In the foreground, tall, golden-tan grasses and patches of dark reddish-brown heather surround a small, shallow pool of blue water reflecting the sky. The midground features rolling patches of low-lying vegetation in earthy tones of green, gold, and deep red. The flat horizon stretches into the distance, meeting a clear, expansive sky.
The mapped pond.

Back home, digging deeper in the armchair sense, I found a Whitby Gazette report dated 18 February 19942“POND MUST BE FILLED IN”. Whitby Gazette – 18 February 1994. https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001103/19940218/068/0009. The National Park Development Control Sub-Committee had ordered a 30 by 20 metre pond on Easington High Moor, dug without planning permission, to be filled in. A retrospective application by Mr Marcus Redway of Littlebeck, was refused, confirming an earlier enforcement order. The National Park Officer pointed out, with some understatement, that filling it in would probably cause more harm than leaving it alone, given the lack of material and access. The pond was said to have little visual impact, though its value to conservation was politely doubted. It was one of three ponds made by a previous owner for duck feeding and shooting. Two were said to be drying out. Mr Redway, with only limited interests there, had no wish to encourage ducks or shoot wildfowl, but felt small moorland ponds might help wildlife.

So no smoking gun, more a damp squib. Still, I suspect the three ponds mentioned are the two I visited today plus the one I found twenty years ago. None look like they are drying out. Silting up, perhaps. Drying out, not so much, with or without planning permission.

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