Out & About …

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

Category: Highcliff Nab

  • The Cleveland Way

    The Cleveland Way

    Buy any Ordnance Survey 1:25,000 map nowadays and you’ll find it criss-crossed by lines of green diamonds — the symbol for a National Trail or Long Distance Path. In 1965, the first such trail was launched, The Pennine Way, and the second was our very own Cleveland Way, opened four years later on this day,…

  • The House of Lords is “useless and dangerous to the people of England”

    The House of Lords is “useless and dangerous to the people of England”

    The House of Commons so declared on this day, 19th March, in 1649, when the House of Lords was abolished. In January of that year, Charles I had been executed and Oliver Cromwell, ‘Lord Protector‘ dominated the Government. The House of Lords was reduced to a largely redundant body having no powers and was abolished…

  • In search of an Iron Age “encampment” on Highcliffe Nab

    In search of an Iron Age “encampment” on Highcliffe Nab

    I was intrigued by this view of Highcliffe Nab that has been opened by the felling in Guisborough Wood and particularly with what appears to be a distinct earthwork descending diagonally from the nab to the col of Highcliffe Gate. First thing when I got in was to have a look at the Lidar mapping,…

  • Codhill Farm and Bold Venture

    Codhill Farm and Bold Venture

    It’s not the most obvious place to site a farm, on the col between Highcliff Nab and Great Ayton Moor. A col unsheltered from both northerly and southerly winds. The col was formed as a spillway to the south from lakes formed between the north-facing escarpment of the Cleveland Hills and the glacier flowing along…

  • The day Guisborough led the nation

    The day Guisborough led the nation

    A view of Highcliff Nab across Bold Venture Gill. This boundary stone is one of a line of marking the former boundary of Guisborough and Hutton Lowcross boundary. It is inscribed ‘T.C. G. 1860’; standing for Thomas Chaloner and Guisborough. But it is his father, Robert Chaloner, I want to write about today. I have…

  • Mesolithic Guisborough

    Mesolithic Guisborough

    I often stand on a viewpoint and wonder what the landscape before me was like in times past. What did our ancestors, standing on this same spot see? More often, my imagination struggles to extend beyond the past century. A millennium past and it becomes hazy and obscure. Eight millennia, I can only reach in…

  • A lichen covered Highcliff Nab

    A lichen covered Highcliff Nab

    I’ve heard my first cuckoo of the year. Cuckoo – an echo of the bird’s call – an onomatopoeia. Words come and go. Some words are just made up – neologisms. Shakespeare was apt to make up words, so was John Milton. In 1667, Milton was blind and impoverished, and it was on this day…

  • Potters Ridge

    Potters Ridge

    I have not taken a photo from this spot before. Honest. I moved a hundred metres south from Black Nab to be sure. I have often wondered how Potters Ridge got its name. That low 25 metre high prominence behind Highcliff Nab. I think I’ve found out. In 1806, Robert Chaloner, the Lord of the…

  • Rivelingdale from Potters Ridge

    Rivelingdale from Potters Ridge

    The image belies the buffeting I was getting by the bitter wind. I was on Potters Ridge, a small 24m high prominence of Guisborough Moor. Highcliff Nab is at the north-western end, and views of Sleddale and Rivelingdale on the southern, the ridge bisected by the forestry boundary fence. I am currently reading ‘Sapiens’ by…

  • And so, into February – mud, cabbage, cakes, and streaking

    And so, into February – mud, cabbage, cakes, and streaking

    February, or as the Venerable Bede wrote ‘Solmonaþ‘ – Mud Month. (The ‘þ‘ is a thorn, a character used in Old English and pronounced similar to ‘th’ apparently. It is also used in modern Icelandic.) The view today is of Highcliff Nab taken from just below Black Nab across the fields of Codhill or Highcliffe…