Category: Great Ayton
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The Marsh-marigold (Caltha palustris)
A murky morning so my eyes were drawn closer to earth seeking for signs of the vernal awakening. This spring, in the old Slack’s Quarry, seems to be a favourite spot for the marsh marigold, its vivid yellow flowers already in bloom. Wikipedia says it should flower between April and August, but I suspect the…
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Cliff Rigg and Great Ayton from Roseberry
We are informed from Great Ayton near Gisborough, in Yorkshire; that a mad Cat has lately bit two Women, a Horse, and also several other Creatures at some Miles Distance from the Place it belonged to. As it is found by Experience, this Malady (which is much more terrible in the Human Species than Death…
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School Farm
Outline planning permission is currently being applied for a proposed housing development at School Farm in Great Ayton. That’s the farm on the right with the proposed 35 houses extending across the field this side of the houses on Station Road and Dikes Lane. A previous scheme in 2016 was rejected after being vehemently opposed…
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Ayton Banks Ironstone Mine
I thought I would have a look around the Ayton Banks Ironstone Mine before the summer vegetation growth takes hold, only to find when I got home that I have already posted a photo of the old drift entrance. But that was an eternity ago, in January 2015. Ayton Banks Ironstone Mine was the smallest…
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New hedge along the old tramway to Roseberry Mine
I have felt uneasy for some time about the prevalence of plastic tree guards. Their never-ending march seems to pervade into every nook and cranny of our countryside — from our National Parks to motorway verges. They are supposed to protect saplings from browsing animals and to cocoon them in a mini-greenhouse. But are they…
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Scarlet Elfcup
What do the woodland elves use to drink their morning dew? Why, elfcups of course. On the damp floor of the wooded Slacks Quarry, the vivid red of the Scarlet Elfcups are in sharp contrast to the greens of the mosses. Sarcoscypha austriaca is its scientific name, meaning from Austria, although this fungus is found…
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A late afternoon wander
A strange sort of day. Blue skies in Ayton this morning but Nunthorpe enveloped in a low lying fog, which by late afternoon was beginning to creep higher. The cottage is known as Airey Holme Cottage, built sometime in the later half of the 19th-century and recently modernised. Most of the census returns are not…
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St. Thomas’s Day
Four shopping days left and all’s quiet on Great Ayton’s High Green. Everyone’s waiting on the Government’s dilly-dallying. And it’s also St. Thomas’s Day when it’s traditional for Yorkshire lads to go around farms and houses ‘a-Thomassing‘ or ‘St. Thomassing‘; asking for ‘Thomas’s gifts‘ usually a piece of ginger bread, a slice of pepper cake,…
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Roseberry from Carr Ridge
It seems a bit of a waste. Posting a distant photo of my local hill. I had planned a wander over Urra Moor. A dull start but I could see this patch of sunlight slowly making its way over the Eston Hills. I figured sooner or later it would shine on Roseberry. I wasn’t disappointed.…
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The Tragedy of the Commons
Aireyholme was once the common pasture for the parish of Great Ayton. Parishioners had various rights on the land. Usually this would include the right right to pasture cattle, but Common Land may include other rights such as collecting wood, piscary, the right to fish and turbery, the right to cut turves of peat for…