Category: Ryedale
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Ardenside
I came across a rather poignant tale the other day. It concerned William Wass of Ardenside who was called up to fight in the Crimean War. Now one way of escaping the call up apparently was to get someone else to go in your place and so Wass persuaded his friend, John Barr, who subsequently…
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Site of Monastic Cell at Old Byland
Sir Nikolaus Pevsner (1902 – 1983) was an architectural historian who documented the principal historic buildings in every county in his ‘The Buildings of England‘. In his Yorkshire volume under Old Byland, he writes in the introduction to the village “the site of Byland Abbey was 1¼ m. NE of Old Byland“. I was fascinated…
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View from the top of Newgate Bank
Bilsdale directly below me, Hawnby and Ryedale in the distance separated by the hump of Easterside. A lovely day for a bike ride, plenty of apricity. It’s Mischief Night. At least it was when I was a kid, growing up in the 50s and 60s. The day before Bonfire Night. None of this Halloween plastic…
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Far House
A long-abandoned farmstead on the west bank of the River Rye, in the manor of Arden. It was last occupied in the 1930s. Although, it is named as Far House on the oldest Ordnance Survey maps the farm has been identified as previously being called Paddock Wath, a name which Bill Cowley records was still…
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Upper Ryedale and Snilesworth Moor
The gamekeepers have taken advantage of the vernal weather to burn the heather on their moors. Plumes of smoke can be seen right across the skyline, creating a haze. The smoke from these burns on Snilesworth Moor was drifting as far as Sheepwash, spoiling the day for families enjoying half term walking around the reservoir.…
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Dale Head
It is actually wrong to describe this valley as Ryedale. By convention, the source of a river is its longest tributary which puts the source of the River Rye at the appropriately named Rye Head near to the Swainby Shooting Hut on Whorlton Moor. The ruined Dale Head overlooks Wheat Beck, a shorter tributary. It’s…
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Upper Ryedale
Compared to other moorland dales, such as Bilsdale, Farndale and Bransdale, the valley of the upper River Rye is relatively infertile. The river has not eroded through the sandstones to reveal the underlying shales and the broad fertile valley bottoms of these other dales are missing. Instead, there are rarely more than two fields either…