Category: Cleveland Hills
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The ScaurāMusings on Glaciers and Randklufts
I revisited an old stomping ground todayāa route I came to know far too well during the 2001 Foot and Mouth epidemic, when it was the only slice of countryside not off-limits. Back then, it was decorated with the charred remains of several burnt-out cars, but these have now been swapped for a battalion of…
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An Overlooked Old Quarry on Scarth Wood Moor
What a difference from yesterday morning, with super lighting on Scarth Wood Moor. Here we have a disused sandstone quarry, now absorbed into the landscape, grazed by sheep and cattle. According to the National Park Heritage Records, it dates to the early 19th century. Meanwhile, the National Trust, who actually own the moor, appear to…
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From Beak Hills to the Cotswolds: A Tale of Unequal Farming
Cringle Moor, as seen from Cold Moor across the eastern sweep of Raisdale. Below sits Beak Hills farm, your archetypal North York Moors operation. According to their website, they mostly breed sheep on 125 acres of valley pasture, with another 300 acres of shared grazing rights on Cold Moor. They have also embraced modern farming…
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Jacksonās BankāMedieval Trod
As you reach the top of Jacksonās Bank, it is hard not to imagine that, at the turn of the last century, weary walkers resting upon these boulders were serenaded by the rather pastoral sounds of iron-laden trucks grinding, screeching, and clattering their way down that incline on the opposite side of Greenhow Botton. This…
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Raw Impressions: Cleveland Hills Above a Blanket of Mist
Certainly, nothing whatsoever about this view of the Cleveland Hills evokes the word ārecrudescenceāāthough it is oddly suited to todayās general mood. In the 20th century, ārecrudescenceā came to signify the reappearance of anything thoroughly unpleasant after a period of respiteāwar, plague, outrage, crime. The 18th-century meaning was more viscerally satisfying: wounds ābreaking out afresh,ā…
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Of Cloud and Candle-Rushes: Taxation, Tradition, and a Dreich Brianās Pond
What a profoundly uninspiring morning it has beenāso much dull, grey cloud blanketing the Cleveland Hills that one might have suspected a conspiracy to make photography impossible. Still, in search of a morsel of interest, I plodded resolutely up to Brianās Pond, which is quite possibly named in honour of that storied Irish figure, āBryan…
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Michaelmas Traditions: From the Devilās Brambles to Cabbage Wars
One of my favourite sights is the spectacle of a temperature inversion in Bilsdale, when the mist rolls over the Cleveland Hills like a waterfall, spilling into the plain below. Such was the view this morning, on this day of St Michaelās Feast, or Michaelmas. Michaelmas, celebrated on the 29th of September each year, marks…
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90 Metres of Progress: The Curious Case of a New Bridleway
It is a curious thing, is it not, that the powers-that-be, in their infinite wisdom, believed they could neatly parcel up the English countryside like so many slices of cake, each path and bridleway served with a side of bureaucracy. Under the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act of 1949, a grand endeavour…
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Cumulus, Cirrus, and The Cleveland Hills
As I trudged along the escarpment of Great Ayton Moor, my eyes were drawn southwestward, where a rather theatrical display of clouds was being jostled along by an brisk southwesterly wind. My morning walk had started with a few ominous spots of rain, but which was grudgingly giving way to clear skies. One cannot help…
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The Tory Party, 1832-2024
It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of the Tory Party, beloved overlord, on 5 July 2024 after a long and terminal decline. The Conservative and Unionist Party was founded in 1832 from an alliance between the Tory and Whig parties to defend the existing order against radical reform. Once widely respected,…