Category: North York Moors
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The Valais Blacknose: A Woolly Aristocrat of the Alps
Imagine, if you will, a sheep so hardy that it has been roaming about the Swiss mountains since the 1400s. Enter the Valais Blacknose, or, for those who fancy a bit of local colour, the Walliser Schwarznasenschaf. These creatures, bred for the Alpine chill, sport a thick, white fleece that allows them to strut about…
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Roseberryâs Reckoning â Rainbow’s End
The small but iconic Roseberry Topping, the crown jewel of the Cleveland Hills, offers itself as the venue for what many consider to be an annual spectacle of human folly: a race up and down its steep slopes, commencing from the village of Newton-under-Roseberry. This brief but brutal course, infamous for its lung-searing ascent followed…
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Roseberryâs Witches and the New Myths We Embrace: A Continuum of Credulity
According to the quaint tales of yesteryear, Roseberry Topping was once a preferred haunt of witches. Picture, if you will, three Ayton men, trembling with fright, witnessing a trio of broomstick-riding hags circling the summit and executing some arcane ritual, while sorrowful wails echoed through the night. The villagers, in their infinite wisdom, deduced that…
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The White Flint Legacy of Castleton
At the crest of an old tramway incline from the former silica quarries, once the workings of the Sheffield-based firm J. Grayson Lowood & Co. Ltd., one gazes across the Esk valley. Just off-centre in the distance lies the looming hump of Castleton Rigg, climbing to the highest point of the âFat Moors.â The village…
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From Blakey Ridge to Hutton le Hole
The North York Moors, with their picturesque dales, lure photographers like moths to a candle. However, lurking between these dales are the âriggsââor ridgesâseldom graced by the eyes of admirers, yet bearing the heavy burden of being the ancient arteries of communication since time immemorial. Todayâs photograph shows the southern end of Blakey Ridge, shortly…
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Echoes of Industry â The Uncertain Future of Bransdale Mill
Nearly everyone who lays eyes on Bransdale Mill is plagued by the same inquiry: What on earth is to be done with it? When the Feversham family graciously handed over Bransdale and its forlorn mill to the National Trust in 1968, the building was little more than a crumbling relic. The roof had collapsed, the…
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Nature’s Nightmare: The Environmental Impact of Pheasant Shooting
A jaunt in the countryside typically leaves one with an idyllic sense of peace, a quaint communion with nature. But this morning, I encountered a rather more disquieting spectacle. A bevy of young pheasants, dozens of them, darting about with all the coordination of those small, ravenous Compsognathids from “Jurassic Park.” These birds, though one…
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Cumulus, Cirrus, and The Cleveland Hills
As I trudged along the escarpment of Great Ayton Moor, my eyes were drawn southwestward, where a rather theatrical display of clouds was being jostled along by an brisk southwesterly wind. My morning walk had started with a few ominous spots of rain, but which was grudgingly giving way to clear skies. One cannot help…
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The Sheep Walkâs Silent Lament
Long ago, or so the legend goes, a Danish chieftain met a sticky end amongst these rocky crags now known as the Wainstones, a name supposedly derived from the Old Saxon âwanian,â meaning to lament. Perhaps our unfortunate chieftain found his doom in this rather dramatic boulder-strewn gap between the rock outcrops, now rather humbly…
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Betty Strother: A Yorkshire Witch
Cycling through Danby Park today opened up views of Castleton, perched precariously on the rigg across the Esk Valley. I was reminded of one of those countless lockdown projectsâthose fleeting fancies born of enforced idlenessâwhich, like so many others, has been unceremoniously abandoned to gather dust. This particular project involved the tedious task of transcribing…