Out & About …

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

Category: Great Ayton Moor

  • Chambered Cairn, Great Ayton Moor

    Chambered Cairn, Great Ayton Moor

    It was only when someone asked me over the Christmas holidays the whereabouts the chambered cairn on Great Ayton Moor, having failed to find it, I realised it had been a few years since I had last visited. So on a cold, damp, overcast morning, I figured it was as good a time as any…

  • Bronze Age Round Cairn on a scorched moor

    Bronze Age Round Cairn on a scorched moor

    Sunday before last (18th) was a glorious November day. Blue skies, little wind with many walkers taking to the moors. I recall standing on Cliff Rigg and noticing the number of folk on Roseberry. But the scene was marred by dense black smoke coming from the direction of Newton and Great Ayton Moors. The periodic…

  • A crepuscular stroll on Great Ayton Moor

    A crepuscular stroll on Great Ayton Moor

    Another glorious Autumn day. Soon to change by the end of the week though. A north wind is forecast, and when that doth blow… But for now, the evening closes. The sun has sunk below the western horizon. The sky darkens. Where is Hesperus? Plenty of folks still out on the moor, on their vespertine…

  • Shooting butt, Great Ayton Moor

    Shooting butt, Great Ayton Moor

    As a 17-year-old, I played wing forward for my school rugby team. We were unassailable, the best in the county. Against one school I remember a 70+ point score. We took it in turns to score. Can such a one-sided game really be classed as a sport? A no lesser body as the United Nations…

  • In the cool of the evening …

    In the cool of the evening …

    … a wander on Great Ayton Moor to watch the sunset. The midges were lively though. Open Space Web-Map builder Code

  • On Ayton Bank

    On Ayton Bank

    The last day of February and I had had tentative thoughts of cycling into Middlesbrough to photograph the Newport Bridge for it was on this day in 1934 that the bridge was opened by the future King George VI. But more snow overnight put paid to that idea, so Plan B: head up on to…

  • Highcliffe Nab from Percy Rigg

    Highcliffe Nab from Percy Rigg

    This must be a first. It’s rare that I take a photo from the same spot I’ve used previously but to find myself in exactly the same place on consecutive days is unheard of. So yesterday was a view south-east, today north-east, from Percy Rigg on Great Ayton Moor. Ahead is Highcliffe Nab. The tracks…

  • Lonsdale

    Lonsdale

    A side valley of Kildale on a sunny Christmas Day. The farm in the centre we still know as Smelly Farm. Well, that was twenty years ago, it has been tidied up since and no longer exudes the particular miasmas. And of course, it was never a farm as such just a range of barns.…

  • Not the best of landings

    Not the best of landings

    I haven’t whinged on about litter recently. The problem hasn’t gone away. There’s a couple of new websites that have been set up to geolocate litter. Firstly there’s the Marine Conservation Society in support of their campaign for the introduction of a plastic Deposit Return System. And then there’s the Open Litter Map (#OpenLitterMap), an…

  • Boundary Stone, Great Ayton Moor

    Boundary Stone, Great Ayton Moor

    Sorry but I just couldn’t resist another photo of the purple swathe of a heather moor. The ling is now in full bloom and for just a few weeks the colour is glorious. Highcliff Nab is in the distance and in the foreground is a sandstone boundary marker dating from the 19th century. ‘R C’…