Out & About …

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

Category: Danby

  • Danby Rigg, flanked by Little Fryup Dale and Danby Dale

    Danby Rigg, flanked by Little Fryup Dale and Danby Dale

    The sunshine made a refreshing change from the low cloud and mizzle of the last few days. This is taken on the descent from Danby Beacon looking due south. Just left of centre is Danby Castle, a partially ruined 14th-century pile built by the Latimer family, now part of a working farm with Court Leet…

  • Stanch Bullen and Round Hill

    Stanch Bullen and Round Hill

    I’ve always thought this was Fairy Cross Plain but that is not strictly correct. That name belongs to the col just off to the right, where Little Fryup Dale becomes Great Fryup Dale, where the myth persisted through the centuries as the home of elves and fairies. The small rounded knoll has a more descriptive…

  • Nothing to see here …

    Nothing to see here …

    Just a scene of everyday countryfolk mingling prior to exercising their natural right to kill the red grouse, Lagopus lagopus scotica. The keepers, beaters and general folk of a lower class were mustering out of shot. Grouse shooting has been declared an “organised outdoor sport” or “licensed outdoor physical activity” and as such is exempted…

  • Siss Cross

    Siss Cross

    A beautiful January but marred by the smell of burning heather. And on a Sunday too. It seems like we’re just spitting in the face of the Australians. And all to maximise the grouse bag. There are some rules: heather should not be burnt where the smoke is likely to damage health or cause a…

  • Robin Hoods Butts

    Robin Hoods Butts

    The large expanse of heather moorland between Scaling Dam and Danby Beacon is one of the bleakest moors and at its bleakest at the height of the winter. I am reminded of Christina Rossetti’s poem published under the title “A Christmas Carol”: In the bleak mid-winter Frosty wind made moan; Earth stood hard as iron,…

  • Little Fryup Dale

    Little Fryup Dale

    It’s been a few months since I’ve been up on the Heads, that elongated hill separating the two Fryup Dales. This is the head of the smaller dale. The buildings on the far left are named on the map as Fairy Cross Plain. There are two cottages, one is relatively modern but the other has…

  • Job Cross

    Job Cross

    On Moorsholm Moor. Perhaps one of the North York Moors most elusive crosses. Job Cross stands 30 metres or so north of the modern track designated as a Public Right of Way open to all traffic but once found it becomes obvious from quite a way off. The modern route must have been diverted slightly…

  • Ewe Crag Beck

    Ewe Crag Beck

    A run out from Danby to Sis Cross and back via Ewe Crag Beck, a deep long meandering valley. At its head it becomes Ewe Crag Slack where it is shallow, broad, and flat, forming a boggy col in the watershed. With “no stream worth mentioning” Frank Elgee suggests in his book The Moorlands of…

  • Siss Cross

    Siss Cross

    Typical of the many crosses that are a feature of the North York Moors. Originally erected by the Saxons or Danes after their conversion to Christianity but most replaced over the years. Their purpose has been speculated as a waymarker, territorial boundary or a memorial but may have been re-used for all of these. Siss…

  • Mark’s-e’en watch

    Mark’s-e’en watch

    A warm, beautiful morning but very hazy, not conducive at all for distant landscape photographs. All the colours end up being washed out. It must be all this Sarahan sand. Tomorrow, April 25, is the feast day of St. Mark the Evangelist which makes today St Mark’s Eve when it was the custom to sit…