Out & About …

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

Category: Blakey Topping

  • Site of Blakey House

    Site of Blakey House

    A lone gate post and some lumps and bumps mark the site of a long gone farmstead called Blakey House. The buildings must have been still extant pre-WW2 as is it recorded they were destroyed during military trainingfor that conflict. The age of the farmstead is given as ‘post medieval’ which could be anytime between…

  • Blakey Topping standing stones

    Blakey Topping standing stones

    Could this group of standing stones be the remains of a stone circle? Although only three stones are visible in the photo, there is certainly a fourth in an old field bank and one source says a fifth, although I didn’t spot either of these. In addition there are two or three hollows in the…

  • More Devil’s work

    More Devil’s work

    The devil works hard so they say, but he doesn’t seem to be very good at any of his whimsical, crackpot schemes. It’s said he took a dislike of Aldborough but his ‘Arrows’ fell short and only just missed striking Boroughbridge. Then there’s his grandiose scheme for dividing the North Sea which got no further…

  • Blakey Topping

    Blakey Topping

    Some say it was the giant Wade that created Blakey Topping when he had a tiff with his wife, Bell, and threw lumps of earth at her as she ran across the moor. Where he scooped up the earth is now known as the Hole of Horcum. Of course, the geologists tell us it is…

  • Blakey Topping

    Blakey Topping

    A rewarding day on Thompson’s Rigg with the constant backdrop of Blakey Topping. The task was to install water vole fencing along Crosscliff Beck. Now that is not fencing to keep the water voles in but to keep sheep out. Water voles are one of our rarest native mammals and have suffered a sharp decline…

  • Blakey Topping, viewed from the south-east

    Blakey Topping, viewed from the south-east

    Viewed from Thompson’s Rigg, Blakey Topping looks almost conical. From the south-west, it’s a humpback hill. Supposedly built by the giant Wade after an argument with his wife. In a fit of temper, he scooped up a handful of earth, thereby creating the Hole of Horcum, and threw it at her but missed. Blakey Topping…

  • Grain Slack

    Grain Slack

    Discovered a new area of moorland today. Thompson’s Rigg, part of the National Trust’s Blakey Topping property. Heather dominates the rigg, hiding the prehistoric field system, cairnfield and hollow ways. Across Grain Slack, a diverse shallow valley is Allerston High Moor, also Trust land. In the distance, the commercial plantations of Langdale Forest have been…