Month: February 2021
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St. Botolph’s Church, Carlton-in-Cleveland
I am not religious. In fact, the older I get, the more cynical I become. But I do respect churches. Like any other old buildings, they have a direct connection with the past, many having stood for centuries. A connection to the average folk of the community, not the upper echelons. St. Botolph’s Church in…
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Thruhkelde
Last Sunday I wrote about the 13th-century charter ‘Cartularium Prioratus de Gyseburne’ in which ‘Thruhkelde’ or the ‘spring on the pass’ was mentioned. It is thought to be Codhill Spring on the 1856 Ordnance Survey map. Passing by today, I though I would take a look. It’s easy enough to find, barely five metres from the…
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Castleton Silica Quarries
See the old tramway incline up to the moor edge on the far side of the valley? I walked up it two days ago on my way to Freebrough. Here, from across the dale at High Castleton, it’s quite obvious. It leads to a complex area of disused quarries, with ponds, crags, re-entrants and spurs.…
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From Crows to Cobras
I thought I would pop along to see if this ladder trap I last visited a couple of years ago had been in use. It doesn’t look like it. The dead crow that was there previously has long since long and the access gate was left open. Although these traps are not selective, birds of…
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The Folly
An early dash up Roseberry on an overcast morning. I’ll risk some wrath when I say this is not a shooting box even though a small plaque erected on the building by the National Park states that it is. It is shown on a sketch by George Cruit dated 1788 and game shooting was not…
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Moorsholm Spring
Note to self: do your research before going out and about. Heading over to Moorsholm High Moor, I had intended to take a look at a round barrow dug by Canon Atkinson in the 19th-century in which he found stones of whinstone, the volcanic rock which the nearest outcrop is 3½ miles away. I guessed…
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Sheep House, below Medd Crag, Bilsdale
It seems to me that it is quite uncommon in the North York Moors to have a barn for housing sheep remote from the farmyard, unlike, say, the cow-houses of the Yorkshire Dales. And as barns go this is quite a long one, undivided, just one long space. Built sometime in the late 19th-century, perhaps…
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Melegate
The cyclists and the walkers are on the Cleveland Way between Little Roseberry and the Kildale track. This is supposed to be the route of an ancient and important route called ‘Melegate‘. The name is mentioned in a 13th-century charter between Guisborough Priory, and Richard de Hoton and his brother, Humphrey, following a dispute over…
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Top of Thief Lane
I woke up the the farming programme this morning, a weekly roundup as it’s Saturday, and one of the items was that 20 years ago yesterday, in 2001, was the first outbreak of foot and mouth at an abattoir in Essex. This lead to a nationwide lockdown not so dissimilar to our current one. The…
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A pair of boundary stones
Earlier this week, I wrote about ‘The Race’, a leat built in the early 18th-century to capture water from the Esk side of Great Ayton Moor. There’s more here. This boundary stone is located just inside the forestry boundary next to ‘The Race’ above Hell Gill. It is inscribed ‘TC 1860’, which refers to Admiral…