Out & About …

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

Month: October 2019

  • Moor burning on Commondale Moor

    Moor burning on Commondale Moor

    With the advent of the autumnal fine weather, the heather burning season has quickly got underway. At least half a dozen fires could be seen from Ainthorpe Rigg today with smoke was creeping down on to Guisborough and the Esk valley. A sharp contrast to just six weeks ago when the North York Moors National…

  • Hutton Lowcross Woods

    Hutton Lowcross Woods

    The autumnal colours are really striking at the moment. I have always known these as Hutton Lowcross Woods. The Ordnance Survey map says so. But Forest England refers to all the contiguous woods from Roseberry Common to Slapewath as Guisborough Forest. They form a backdrop to the town of Guisborough, the “ancient capital of Cleveland”.…

  • Largs and the Fairlie Roads

    Largs and the Fairlie Roads

    Another photo from the OMM weekend in Scotland. This is the final descent to the finish in Largs (or An Leargaidh Ghallda in Gaelic) with super views across the Firth of Clyde and the island of Great Cumbrae. The sound between Largs and Great Cumbrae is known as the Fairlie Roads. The only history I…

  • Muirshiel Country Park

    Muirshiel Country Park

    The term ‘country park’ brings up an image of a Capability Brown inspired landscape, broad swathes of close-cropped grass pasture grazed by herds of deer with a scattering of veteran trees, sweeping down to a lake. Muirshiel Country Park, west of Glasgow is 110 square miles of blanket bog with knee-high tussocks and soul-destroying heather.…

  • Roseberry in the Golden Hour

    Roseberry in the Golden Hour

    That last hour before period sunset, when the sun is low on the horizon and its rays pass through the atmosphere for a greater distance, becoming weaker, more diffracted, and appearing redder. The spoil heap is from the transhipment yard where the iron ore from the Roseberry Mine was transferred from the narrow-gauge railway onto…

  • The Ash

    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.…

  • Ornamental Gateposts, Pinchinthorpe Hall

    Ornamental Gateposts, Pinchinthorpe Hall

    Probably dating from the mid-17th-century when the hall old manor house was rebuilt. Since then it has been much extended and altered. In recent years Pinchinthorpe Hall has undergone many changes in use, from a country residence to a hotel and restaurant, a brewery, and another restaurant which is now closed but a reopening is…

  • Old Meggison

    Old Meggison

    Kildale Falls, aka Old Meggison. I had spotted the other day that a lot of work had been done by the estate thinning the trees and constructing steps down the steep bank. It has certainly been made a lot brighter and easier access downstream. The track along the gorge still displays “Concessionary Path” signs with…

  • Great Ayton Bridge

    Great Ayton Bridge

    Another drizzly misty morning so came back through the village. Ayton’s bridge over the River Leven was built in 1909 replacing an earlier humpbacked one. There has been a lot of rain overnight and the river is high. But I really wanted to photograph Easby Lane. That’s it, a residential road heading off in the…

  • Kirby Bank

    Kirby Bank

    Crossing Emerson’s fence on the climb up Kirby Bank from the Scout camp. I have already posted about the history of this fence before. A posting which although only from May this year, I had completely forgotten about. The fenceline was created as the result of a legal dispute in 1854 over potential ironstone mining…