Category: Goathland
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The Tarn, once a winter playground
On Two Howes Rigg, south of Goathland, is a dainty pool named “The Tarn.” It is manmade, built in the early 20th century. The early O.S. map show the area with marsh symbols. Between the wars, this pond transformed into an icy playground during severe winters. Goathland, it seems, morphed into a local St. Moritz…
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Simon Howe on Goathland Moor
It was on this day, 29th April 1770, that Great Ayton’s famous son, Captain James Cook landed at Botany Bay in Australia and “with the Consent of the Natives” claimed the whole continent “in the Name of the King of Great Britain“. Now whether Cook actually discussed the matter with the aboriginals is a moot…
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Wheeldale
Wheeldale Beck, one of the upper tributaries of the Murk Esk, between Goathland and Wheeldale Moors. The house bottom left is Wheeldale Lodge, built at the turn of the 20th century as a gamekeeper’s house, probably James Patterson, who was the keeper to the Duchy of Lancaster when he “discovered” the nearby “Roman Road” in…
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West Beck, Beck Hole
Exploring the excavations of the 19th-century ironstone mining activities in Combs Wood near Beck Hole. These have been carried out by the Land of Iron project over a three year period. We found them easily enough. Most intriguing was a deep pit thought to have contained a waterwheel with a range of remains above which…
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Goathland
In the mid-19th-century a village of Goathland didn’t exist, just a handful of isolated farms separated by wide tracts of common land providing routes between farms and the surrounding moorland. The Duchy of Lancaster claim ownership of this common land and until a few years ago allowed residents the right to cross it in order…