Month: December 2017
-
Little Langdale
At a mere 211m height Great How is a small pimple of a hill but with super views of Little Langdale which position at the junction of several packhorse routes from Ravenglass, Whitehaven, Keswick and Ambleside led to a busy valley. But, as well as farming and quarrying the slate in the hills, one particular…
-
Susanna Beever Drinking Fountain
An intriguing elaborate drinking fountain at almost the highest point on the Coniston to Hawkshead road. A Grade II listed building it is made of local slate and has two sections with a central pillar. The left-hand bay is a horse drinking trough with the inscription above: A RIGHTEOUS MAN REGARDETH THE LIFE OF HIS…
-
Hodge Close Quarry
Sometimes I forget that the Lake District is largely a manmade environment. This is Hodge Close, a spectacular hole in the ground the result of quarrying for slate. It is said to be 100m deep of which a half is below the level of the pond. An overnight dump of snow making the whole scene…
-
Thirlmere
I’ve never been down to the shore of Thirlmere, never really had much to do with the valley, in fact, just the occasional fell or orienteering race from Steel End Farm. I’m usually whizzing by on the A591 heading for Ambleside or Coniston. Thirlmere is a reservoir, manmade in the 19th-century to provide water for…
-
Boulder, Potters Ridge
It always surprises me that this large flat boulder, on Potters Ridge around the back of Highcliff Nab is not named on any map. It is certainly significant and its location on a high point on the North York Moors escarpment only slightly lower than surrounding tops would have been a natural draw for prehistoric…
-
Boxing Day Hunt
The Cleveland Hunt traditionally starts from Great Ayton High Green on Boxing Day. Now I have two issues with fox hunting. Firstly there is much evidence that, in spite of the hunting of animals with dogs having been illegal since 2004, the law is being circumvented by the pretence that hunts are conducted under the…
-
Lonsdale
A side valley of Kildale on a sunny Christmas Day. The farm in the centre we still know as Smelly Farm. Well, that was twenty years ago, it has been tidied up since and no longer exudes the particular miasmas. And of course, it was never a farm as such just a range of barns.…
-
It’s a dog’s life
The ignominy of it. All year I’ve been made to climb the steepest hills, swim the deepest bogs, paddle through farmyard gloop, clamber over tallest stiles and now I’m made to pose here with this piece of Christmas tat. Wishing everyone a very merry Christmas. Open Space Web-Map builder Code
-
Roseberry skyline
The farmland between the Eston Hills and Roseberry Topping is known as The Carrs, a name which has roots in the Scandinavian kjall meaning a water meadow with scattered trees of alder or willow. The modern Ordnance Survey map names it merely as The Flats, and it is indeed flat. But it made a change,…
-
South End, Great Fryup Dale
On Glaisdale Rigg looking across a sea of cloud to the whaleback hill known as Heads which separates the two Fryup Dales, Great and Little. The sun is shining on the South End of Heads. Temperature or cloud inversions offer the most spectacular atmospheric conditions. The dense cold air of the valley is capped by…