Category: North York Moors
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Sunday morning climbing Roseberry
The National Trust acquired the main western slope of Roseberry Topping in 1984 and, by July 1995, had spent £500k on improvements with another £500k planned over the next four years. Much of this money was spent on footpath improvement which had been somewhat neglected when in private ownership. With folks climbing Roseberry increasing year…
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Little Blakey Howe
A Bronze Age burial mound topped by an 18th century boundary stone which is inscribed with the initials ‘TD’, thought to refer to Thomas Duncombe, 18th century owner of the Duncombe Estate. It is thought the stone may be a prehistoric standing stone, in which case it would have been standing when the Crutched Friars…
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An explore of the old lime kilns above Cobble Hall in Commondale
I was actually a little disappointed. The pair of entrances were obscured by a large hawthorn bush and protected by vicious nettles. So I settled for a general view of the quarry above the kilns overlooking lower Commondale. The kilns operated from 1817 to 1838 by Otley & Lightbody and exploited “a localised bed of…
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The manuring of Kildale’s fields
The lush fields of the Kildale are the result of generations of cultivation. Under his tenancy agreement, the farmer at Percy Rigg Farm (or Viewley Hill Farm as it was formerly known in the 19th-century) would have been under certain conditions to maintain and improve his fields. He “will lay and spread … in each…
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A familiar old barn in Baysdale
A well known landmark to anyone who has done any walking in the Baysdale area. Sited on the bridleway along the north side of the dale, from here a track climbs up and over, north to Leven Vale and Little Kildale. Tom Scott Burns writes that this track along the north side of the dale…
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Freedom Day
Another ‘dog day’, so named because these hot and sultry days of summer (in the northern hemisphere at least) are associated with the Dog Star Sirius rising with the sun. And ‘Freedom Day’ to boot. ‘Freedom’ to all those key workers, NHS staff and care helpers who cannot avoid the risk of prolonged exposure, to…
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Long lost pubs of Chop Gate
The most substantive village in Bilsdale. The name, Chop Gate, pronounced ‘Chop Yat‘ in the vernacular, is thought to be derived from the Old English ‘ceap‘, which means a pedlar (chapman), hence the ‘pedlar’s road’. Perhaps this indicates that maybe once numerous trackways converged here from across the moors and the village was a thriving…
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Start of the Lyke Wake Walk
Or is it the finish? A 40 forty mile walk across the highest parts of the North York Moors, with most people tending to start here and finish at Ravenscar on the coast. Since its inception in 1955, the idea of the late Bill Cowley, the walk rapidly gained in popularity during the 60s/70s; in…
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Gribdale and Easby Moor from Cliff Rigg
St Swithin’s day if thou dost rain’ For forty days it will remain; St Swithin’s day if thou be fair, For forty days will rain na mair. So goes the well-known rhyme, and as it’s St Swithin’s day, and as it’s been a lovely dry day, a summer of sunshine awaits us. It all began…
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Yorkshire’s Matterhorn
A rushed snap as I pedalled home along Easby Lane. I don’t know who first compared Roseberry Topping with the Matterhorn. I traced one reference to 1890 but suspect it was already well in use. It is likely that the comparison dates from a few decades earlier following the first ascent of the ‘real’ Matterhorn…