Category: North York Moors
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Moorsholm Spring
Note to self: do your research before going out and about. Heading over to Moorsholm High Moor, I had intended to take a look at a round barrow dug by Canon Atkinson in the 19th-century in which he found stones of whinstone, the volcanic rock which the nearest outcrop is 3½ miles away. I guessed…
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Sheep House, below Medd Crag, Bilsdale
It seems to me that it is quite uncommon in the North York Moors to have a barn for housing sheep remote from the farmyard, unlike, say, the cow-houses of the Yorkshire Dales. And as barns go this is quite a long one, undivided, just one long space. Built sometime in the late 19th-century, perhaps…
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Melegate
The cyclists and the walkers are on the Cleveland Way between Little Roseberry and the Kildale track. This is supposed to be the route of an ancient and important route called ‘Melegate‘. The name is mentioned in a 13th-century charter between Guisborough Priory, and Richard de Hoton and his brother, Humphrey, following a dispute over…
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Top of Thief Lane
I woke up the the farming programme this morning, a weekly roundup as it’s Saturday, and one of the items was that 20 years ago yesterday, in 2001, was the first outbreak of foot and mouth at an abattoir in Essex. This lead to a nationwide lockdown not so dissimilar to our current one. The…
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A pair of boundary stones
Earlier this week, I wrote about ‘The Race’, a leat built in the early 18th-century to capture water from the Esk side of Great Ayton Moor. There’s more here. This boundary stone is located just inside the forestry boundary next to ‘The Race’ above Hell Gill. It is inscribed ‘TC 1860’, which refers to Admiral…
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Hell Gill Reservoir
A familiar feature for those in the know. Tucked away a few metres up from the main forest track. A much used control site in orienteering races. This reservoir near the head of Hell Gill was built in the 1870s to supply water for Joseph Whitwell Pease’s Hutton Estate. The mains ran first to Home…
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Pancake Day
On my way to Northallerton to get jabbed, so popped over into Cod Beck on the way. This is a view of Scarth Nick and Sheep Wash from Priest’s Spa Quarry on Hither Moor. And it’s Pancake Day too, a day when many traditions have been lost to history. Shrove Tuesday, the day before the…
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On this day, in 1971, the end of an era
As we further attempt to cocoon ourselves from the European project, now may be the time to think again about that disastrous venture that happened on this day in 1971, fifty years ago. Decimalisation was the brainchild of Ted Heath’s Tory Government, plunging the country into chaos. Overnight the old currency of pounds, shillings and…
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Slacks Quarry
This must be one of the oldest whinstone quarries in the Ayton area. It is shown on the 1856 6″ O.S. map which predates the huge Cliff Ridge quarry but there are workings shown on Langbaugh Ridge (to the west of the Guisborough road) and at Dingledow Quarry (to the east of it). Whinstone is…
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Rivelingdale from Potters Ridge
The image belies the buffeting I was getting by the bitter wind. I was on Potters Ridge, a small 24m high prominence of Guisborough Moor. Highcliff Nab is at the north-western end, and views of Sleddale and Rivelingdale on the southern, the ridge bisected by the forestry boundary fence. I am currently reading ‘Sapiens’ by…