Category: Scarth Nick
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Whisky, Oats, and Onions: The Drovers’ Passage through Scarth Nick
In yesterday‘s posting, I told a tale of smugglers darting across the moors, slyly evading the prying gaze of the customs men who, I am sure, looked on in unmitigated fury at their repeated failings. The same wild terrain, it seems, was trampled not only by scoundrels with their wares, but by drovers steering whole…
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Where am I?
I am curious as to how many among you will succeed in locating this photograph without resorting to further reading or consulting the map provided at the bottom of the page. The two cyclists may give it away or else that slither of tarmac on the right. It is, of course, Scarth Nick, a pass…
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Scarth Nick — from drovers to abstainers
Scarth Nick, a natural pass in the Cleveland Hills, has likely served as a route throughout history, from prehistoric times to the present. It was probably used by ancient humans and the Romans, and continued to be used as a drove road for cattle during the Medieval era. This pass acted as a precursor to…
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An earlyish wander around Scarth Wood Moor
Overcast with a patch of heavy drizzle. This is the famous Sheepwash. Where the Hambleton Drove Road fords Crabtree Beck. A popular honeypot in the post-war car boom, but that was before the Cod Beck Reservoir was built. The grassy footpath opposite is not shown on the O.S. map as a Right of Way, but…
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Scarth Nick
I’ve found a photo of Scarth Nick taken in 1935 in The Times and though I would try to replicate it. Unsurprisingly. the view looks familar but one thing that is noticeable is the tree cover, it seems to be a lot more nowadays. The photo accompanied a report on the bequest of Scarth Wood…
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A view of Swainby from Scarth Nick …
… but the point of interest is not the village of Swainby, nor the wooded Whorl Hill on the far right. It is the field visible in the between the gap in the treeline on the left. Or more specifically the isolated tree in that field. It is around about here that a stone coffin…
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Scarth Nick
In the 18th and 19th centuries, Scottish drovers breasted this cleft in the Cleveland Hills driving their cattle to southern markets along the Hambleton Drove Road after fording the Tees at Yarm. It has probably used in prehistory, by the Romans and in medieval times. Today’s tarmac road winds up the climb from Swainby taking…
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Several people have mentioned that the ling is late this year
O the summer time has come And the trees are sweetly bloomin’ The wild mountain thyme Grows around the bloomin’ heather Will ye go, lassie, go? Several people have mentioned that the ling is late this year. Fear not, the purple haze is coming, and getting more pronounced by the day. It may be my…
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Pancake Day
On my way to Northallerton to get jabbed, so popped over into Cod Beck on the way. This is a view of Scarth Nick and Sheep Wash from Priest’s Spa Quarry on Hither Moor. And it’s Pancake Day too, a day when many traditions have been lost to history. Shrove Tuesday, the day before the…
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Scarth Nick
To me, this is one of most evocative features on the Cleveland Hills. It was the first landmark on my first visit to the North York Moors, on a crossing on the Lyke Wake Walk in June 1969. After descending the hill and crossing the cattle grid there was a sign saying “Ravenscar 39 Miles”;…