Out & About …

… on the North York Moors, or wherever I happen to be.

Category: Skelderskew Moor

  • A splash of green

    A splash of green

    Heather moorland, for most of the year, especially in winter, offers a drab palette of dull browns. Only in late summer, when the heather comes into full bloom, do the moors take on their blanket of purple. Yet occasionally you come across a splash of contrast. Verdant bog mosses, most likely one of the UK’s…

  • Havelock Stone

    Havelock Stone

    In 1716 the Lord of the Manor of Gisborough, Edward Chaloner, ‘perambulated’ around the boundaries of his manor. This annual custom was carried out throughout the country often on Ascension Day and is often known as Beating the bounds. Before the days of modern surveying, it was an important way of reinforcing the parish boundaries.…

  • Cross ridge dyke, Skelderskew Moor

    Cross ridge dyke, Skelderskew Moor

    An evocative alignment of standing stones continuing down to North Ings Slack between Commondale and Skelderskew Moors. The stones are part of a dyke, an earth bank with a ditch dug alongside both of which have mellowed over time. The dyke extends for some half a kilometre from the Hob on the Hill boundary stone…

  • Hob on the Hill cross ridge dyke

    Hob on the Hill cross ridge dyke

    The heather moorland between Commondale and Guisborough are among the quietest on the North York Moors yet it is rife with prehistoric remains, round burial barrows, ancient field systems and a cross ridge dyke marked by this alignment of standing stones. The dyke is a Middle Bronze Age earthwork, a little over 400m long and…