Category: Scugdale
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The Ash
Near Huthwaite Green in Scugdale a fine specimen of the Common or European Ash, Fraxinus excelsior, one of Britain’s most majestic trees. In Norse mythology, the tree is Yggdrasil, a great ash at the centre of the cosmos where its branches and roots connect different places and time, allowing passage from the underworld to heaven.…
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Rank Crag
Exploring the head of Scugdale. A distinct line of crags and broken ground at around the 310m contour, the same height as the nick on Stoney Ridge above Holy Well Gill on the southern edge of Scugdale. A coincidence? Maybe not. Between 26,000 and 10,000 years ago during the last ice age, a great glacier…
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“By, yon’s a sooth-east, piner, aa’reet!”
To be honest the weather today hasn’t been the most conducive for the taking of photographs. A raw, bitter wind which does not take the trouble to go around you, but pierces right through to your very bones. No matter my layers of Polartec, gloves and a hat of the finest merino wool. ‘A lazy…
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Clain Wood
You don’t see that many hangers of beech in North Yorkshire, its soils are too clayey. They don’t like getting their feet wet preferring dry alkaline soils like the chalk hills of Southern England. In the north, beech is considered a non-native species. The Cleveland Way and Coast to Coast footpaths go through this little…
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Stony Wicks Boundary Stone
A morning run up Scugdale and over to the Lords Stones, where I was to meet my wife. “Did you see the rainbow?”, she asked. Wanting to avoid pedantry I replied I had but I could have said: “no, but I saw a rainbow”. I took a photo of it and this is it. It…
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A moorjock on Barker’s Ridge
Grazing below Stony Wicks, a scrappy sandstone set of crags at the head of Scugdale, this moorland sheep is oblivious to the eerie sight of the morning fog creeping up the dale from the Vale of Cleveland. Colloquially known as Moorjocks, this sheep is probably a Swaledale, said to be one of the mountain breeds…
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Huthwaite Green
Also known as Heathwaite, names which are as Yorkshire as a name can be, the ‘thwaite’ element coming from the Old Scandinavian word for a clearing: thveit. Heathwaite means a high clearing and Huthwaite a hill clearing. This view over the buttercup meadows of Scugdale is a familiar sight for walkers on the Cleveland Way,…
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Scot Crags
Scot Crags in Scugdale, although probably better known as Barker’s Crags which are strictly the crags beyond the next dry stone wall. All told including Stoney Wicks almost a kilometre of hard sandstone crags, very popular with serious rock athletes and beginner groups alike. Something for everyone. And today, December 6, is the Feast of…
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Snotterdale
A side shoot of Scugdale, I remember Snotterdale as a lovely little valley. But alas no Public Rights of Way exists through so it remains hidden from public gaze. I had the opportunity to explore the woods in 1996 when they were used to stage the Jan Kjellstrƶm orienteering relays. And, as far as I…
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Scugdale
A difficult ascent ofĀ the ‘green lane’ between Scugdale and RaisdaleĀ hinderedĀ a large party of off road motor cyclists coming down. Not aggressive but nevertheless very intimidating. I did takeĀ some pictures of the bikers but eventually settled on a nice rainbow to post. instead. Several years ago there was talk of the National Park closing the lane…