Out & About …

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

Category: Aireyholme

  • Aireyholme Lane

    Aireyholme Lane

    Aireyholme Farm from the south-eastern flank of Roseberry with the Cleveland Hills in the distance. The view is looking down Aireyholme Lane with the course of the old narrow-gauge tramway from the Roseberry Ironstone Mine to its left. Just before the tree, the tramway took a sharp right and headed across the fields to the…

  • A mossy bagel

    A mossy bagel

    Woke up this morning to wind and solid rain with no reprieve forecasted. Inspiration found me in a tweet by Robert Macfarlane. A piece of music by the Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg is titled “Skovstilhed”. It’s his Opus 71 no. 4 and is translated as woodland peace. Macfarlane describes it as the calmness of spirit…

  • Aireyholme Farm

    Aireyholme Farm

    Best known as where James Cook lived as a boy and where his father was employed as the farm foreman, although it is likely that the Cook family’s actual cottage was sited a little distance out of shot to the left at the foot of Cliff Rigg. The modern farm buildings in the photo date…

  • Dances with sheep

    Dances with sheep

    A flock of Aireyholme sheep complete a short set piece of contemporary dance. Very niche. A carefully choreographed outdoor performance that is a joyful exercise in shape, rhythm and sound. But back to reality, another cracking day. Should we be worried? On this day last year, we woke up to a good snowfall with a…

  • Roseberry Ironstone Mine

    Roseberry Ironstone Mine

    It would have been bleak for the folk of Great Ayton on this day in 1921 when the 220 workers at the Roseberry Ironstone Mine received notice to cease work, at the end of which the mine would be idle. It would have been the talk of the village. The mine had reopened in 1906…

  • Aireyholme Lane

    Aireyholme Lane

    Approaching the site of the Roseberry Ironstone Mine on the south-east flank of Roseberry Topping. Late afternoon, finally spring feels like it has arrived and the fields are beginning to drying out. The buildings, clad in corrugated steel, were located in the field on the left, with the bale of hay. Their concrete bases are…

  • Feeding time at Airy Holme

    Feeding time at Airy Holme

    A busy Sunday morning for the farmer at Aireyholme. Snow makes it difficult for stock to graze and these sheep are likely to be in lamb so it’s doubly important to provide a feed supplement which the farmer is doing by a spreader on the back of his quad choreographing the sheep like the Pied…

  • Blue sky, golden fields

    Blue sky, golden fields

    Harvesting at Aireyholme Farm. Wheat I think. The skyline is the escarpment to Great Ayton with Gribdale Gate to the right.

  • Parasol Mushroom, Roseberry

    Parasol Mushroom, Roseberry

    I love mushrooms. SautĂ©ed in butter with a hint of garlic. And if this is a Parasol Mushroom, Macrolepiota procera, it is reputed to be one of the best to eat. But if it’s a False Parasol, Chlorophyllum molybdites, I would be in trouble as it’s poisonous. Although native to North America it has been found in Scotland. Or then it could…

  • Capt. Cooks’ Cottage Archaelogical Dig

    Capt. Cooks’ Cottage Archaelogical Dig

    That’s it. That’s as far as we go. The archaeological excavation at Aireyholme Farm, near Great Ayton, is done.  Today has been spent tidying and cleaning for photographing and recording. Going on the evidence of oral tradition of the farmer at Aireyholme that the boyhood home of Capt. James Cook was within a stand of…