Category: Hutton Lowcross

  • Blue Lagoon

    Blue Lagoon

    It definitely had a blue tinge about it, a result of the mineral washing out of the alum shales. Blue Lagoon or Blue lake is a late-19th-century reservoir built to provide a head of water to hydraulic hoist and water turbines at Home Farm. It was built by Sir Joseph Whitwell Pease, the industrialist and…

  • The Hospital of St. Leonard of Lowcross

    The Hospital of St. Leonard of Lowcross

    A miserable morning so I thought I had better take a photo or two before venturing up into the gloom. The old Ordnance Survey map shows a “Leper Hospital (Site of) A.D. 1392” to the left of centre within the curve of the track. This location is confirmed on the North York Moors Historical Environment…

  • Hooton

    Hooton

    One of my regular runs during this latest lockdown has been from Pinchinthorpe Walkway back home to Great Ayton, so I have become fascinated by the ancient township of Hooton, or to use its modern name, Hutton.  So much so that the spline of the much thumbed book I have, “Two Ancient Townships – Studies…

  • Bousdale Brickworks

    Bousdale Brickworks

    With cloud shrouding the moorland tops, I kept low and, taking advantage of the winter vegetation die back, had a little potter around the old brickworks at Bousdale, now part of a fitness course for the Pinchinthorp Visitor Centre. A ‘Brick Field’ is shown on the 1856 Ordnance Survey map (surveyed 1853). It is thought…

  • A pair of boundary stones

    A pair of boundary stones

    Earlier this week, I wrote about ‘The Race’, a leat built in the early 18th-century to capture water from the Esk side of Great Ayton Moor. There’s more here. This boundary stone is located just inside the forestry boundary next to ‘The Race’ above Hell Gill. It is inscribed ‘TC 1860’, which refers to Admiral…

  • Hell Gill Reservoir

    Hell Gill Reservoir

    A familiar feature for those in the know. Tucked away a few metres up from the main forest track. A much used control site in orienteering races. This reservoir near the head of Hell Gill was built in the 1870s to supply water for Joseph Whitwell Pease’s Hutton Estate.  The mains ran first to Home…

  • Haswell’s Hut

    Haswell’s Hut

    Dull, overcast, and menacing rain. The blue skies over a snow blanketed moors seem an age ago. ‘Haswell’s Hut (Site of)’ is a feature named on the 1856 Ordnance Survey map that has intrigued me for some time. It is shown as just south of the Spot Height of 714 feet and east of the…

  • How to recognise different trees from quite a long way away: No. 2 – The Yew

    How to recognise different trees from quite a long way away: No. 2 – The Yew

    So the sketch in Monty Python’s Flying Circus might have progressed had it gone on past No. 1 – The Larch. Wet and wild today so hugged the forest. I came across this yew tree with a distinct browsing line. This surprised me. I thought the needles were toxic but it turns out deer can…

  • Hutton Hall

    Hutton Hall

    Sir Joseph Pease had this pile built in 1866, and lost it in the banking crash of 1902. It was subsequently repurchased by his son, Sir Alfred Pease, in 1935, and has since been converted into flats and apartments. In 1937 Sir Alfred agreed for it to become home for 20 refugee children aged between…

  • The fields of Hutton Lowcross

    The fields of Hutton Lowcross

    A blue sky first thing this morning. Enough to momentarily forget our troubles. Plenty of runners and dog walkers. The hills are still open, they’re not in lockdown. Yet. Lockdown, an American word first recorded in 1973 meaning the temporary confinement of prisoners to their cells for all of the day. Quarantine, on the other…