Out & About …

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

Category: Ingleby Moor

  • Ah, the joys of heather burning season

    Ah, the joys of heather burning season

    It’s the delightful season of heather burning, and I found myself on Hasty Bank, the perfect vantage point to witness the breathtaking spectacle of over a dozen smoke columns gracefully dancing across a vast 180° panorama of the North York Moors, stretching from Gisborough Moor to the majestic Black Hambleton. In the photo above, these…

  • Woolly Olympics—High Jumps and Clever Ewes

    Woolly Olympics—High Jumps and Clever Ewes

    “The sheep is said to be naturally dull and stupid. Of all quadrupeds it is the most foolish: it will saunter away to lonely places with no object in view; oftentimes in stormy weather it will stray from shelter; if it be overtaken by a snowstorm, it will stand still unless the shepherd sets it…

  • The Hand Stone of Ingleby Moor

    The Hand Stone of Ingleby Moor

    On the desolate expanse of Ingleby Moor stands a weathered stone guidepost, rising tall beyond a metre. Its west face bears the inscription “TO INGLEBY AND STOXLEY,” while the east face proudly displays “TO GUISBORO,” and on the south face, the words “TO KIRBY AND HELMSLEY 1757” are inscribed. But what sets this landmark apart…

  • “The Three Sisters”

    “The Three Sisters”

    “The Three Sisters,” Ingleby-Greenhow by George Markham Tweddell Three tiny streamlets, on the barren moor, Were glittering ’neath the bright rays of the sun: Pleasant it was to mark, where’er they run Along the summit of the mountain hoar, How beautiful rich mosses mark’d their way! These steams united, and went trickling on To add…

  • Quiz time: what is a scud?

    Quiz time: what is a scud?

    If you’d have asked me a week or so ago, I would have said a Scud was a Soviet Union designed ballistic missiles used in the Iraq war. I have since learnt that a scud is a glider, a low-level detached, irregular cloud, and an acronym that is too crude for me to repeat here,…

  • Jenny Bradley stone

    Jenny Bradley stone

    My mind was piqued by the following sentence in a 1906 article in the Whitby Gazette by that prolific writer on all North Yorkshire matters, John Fairfax-Blakeborough (1883-1976): A mile or so from the Nab is to be seen, by the side of the road, a stone which, to the traveller unversed in local legend,…

  • Cheese Stones

    Cheese Stones

    A recent Facebook posting mentioned a “font” on the Cheese Stones on Ingleby Moor. I was intrigued. It’s been a few years since I visited this sandstone outcrop but I had never heard of a rock-font. A little prompting revealed the information was found “on the web”, but the only reference I could find was…

  • The Beast of Ingleby Moor

    The Beast of Ingleby Moor

    Well, I think it looks like a beast, a cat or lion maybe. I woke up needing some inspiration for today’s outing. In 1484, Richard III was on the throne. The last of the Plantagenets, he who ended up under a carpark in Leicester. Whenever I think of Richard III, I think of a quip…

  • Now this is a white Christmas

    Now this is a white Christmas

    For the last 46 years, I have run on Christmas morning. Today was no exception. No new snow overnight but yesterday’s had acquired a frozen crust. This is looking down the Cleveland Way on Ingleby Moor. Quiz question: who described his Christmas day thus? “Lay pretty long in bed, and then rose, leaving my wife…

  • Burton Howe

    Burton Howe

    The largest of four tumuli on a low knoll on the long ridge of Ingleby Moor. The other three are 60m to the north. It’s tempting to assume the name derives from the Old Norse ‘Botn’ meaning a hollow, as does the name of the hamlet of Greenhow Botton which it overlooks. Burton Howe is…