Out & About …

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

Category: Kepwick

  • Lime Kilns of the Tabular Hills

    Lime Kilns of the Tabular Hills

    One of the many limekilns that can be seen dotted around the Tabular Hills. These were used to produce agricultural lime to be spread across the fields as a sweetening agent and to replenish losses, a traditional method in the 18th and 19th centuries for improving the fertility of acidic soils. Limestone, extracted from nearby…

  • A Kepwick Mystery

    A Kepwick Mystery

    For your delectation, another folk tale of the North Riding of Yorkshire from the pen of Richard Blakeborough. This story appeared in an article in the Northern Weekly Gazette on the 15 November 1902. I was reminded of the tale as I descended Gallow Hill toward Kepwick village, a tale fitting for the approaching Halloween…

  • Kepwick limestone quarry incline

    Kepwick limestone quarry incline

    The name of the old inn, Limekiln House, on the Hambleton Drovers’ Road, gives a clue to the industry which dominated the Tabular Hills escarpment above Kepwick. For it catered for the quarrymen as well as the drovers. Limestone has much used since pre-history as a building material, the Great Pyramid of Giza had facing…

  • Nab Ridge, Kepwick

    Nab Ridge, Kepwick

    A walk from Osmotherley to Boltby along Hambleton Street, the old Drovers’ Road. A rather dull afternoon with failing light and a bit of drizzle. This is taken from the Drover’s Road looking down along Nab Ridge onto the village of Kepwick. Just beyond Kepwick and slightly to the right is Howe Hill, which, although…

  • White Gill

    White Gill

    In the Tabular Hills, limestone country in the southern half of the North York Moors and a view west over the Vale of Mowbray to the Yorkshire Dales, supposedly one of the “finest views in all of England”.  White Gill, the stream at the bottom of a deep valley with no name, and downstream, the village of Kepwick.…

  • Kepwick Incline

    Kepwick Incline

    Kepwick is a small village on the western edge of the North York Moors. The moors above Kepwick are limestone and was extensively quarried. This incline was used to haul the stone 800′ down to the valley floor below. Presumably there would have been a bridge carrying the incline over the road Kepwick to Hawnby road.…