Month: August 2021
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St Hilda, Bilsdale Priory
A wet miserable day so I’ve had to resort to architectural interest. This is St. Hilda’s Church, Bilsdale, built in the mid-19th-century replacing an earlier 12th-century one. I didn’t look but there is a stone above the porch doorway, which reads: “COONDDIT ECLEE SIAAM WIILLELMVVS NOBLIS ISTAA OO INTEMERRATE NOOMMIINNE SCE VIIRGINNIIS HILDE” This evidently…
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Bilsdale-Midcable
Bilsdale is a dale of two halves. Or should that be two ends? At the top is the ‘hamlet’ of Bilsdale-Kirkham. Lower down is Bilsdale-Midcable, a ‘chapelry’, the name is a corruption of “Media Capella,” a middle or midway chapel, probably an ancient chapel-of-ease in the adjoining parish of Harome. In 1132 , at the…
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Those pesky rabbits
Thanks to a skill beyond The craft of honest men, I’ve stood twa-hundred years, and mair; And lang may stand again. The answer to John Wilson’s riddle is the dry-stone wall, that constant feature of Britain’s upland countryside. Of course, a dry stone wall will not stand for two hundred years, if climbing sheep have…
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Gin House, Park Farm, Kildale
Horses were once a traditional source of power on the farm and in industry. Threshing, milling, pumping, lifting, sawing, churning would all be done under horse-power. On farms, the ‘gin’, a shortening of the word ‘engine’, was often undercover in a separate building attached to the barn called a ‘gin-house’, and in many cases these…
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G’boro Moor Trig. Point
Today, 17 August, marks the 250th anniversary of the first recorded ascent of Ben Nevis, by Edinburgh botanist James Robertson. I think. I say that because Wikipedia says it’s the 19th. Now, I can’t remember from where I acquired that snippet of information but the Nevis Landscape Partnership website says it’s the 17th, so that’s…
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Insular vert in a sea of purple
When Sleddale, ‘a wide, flat valley’, tributary of the River Esk, was donated to Gisborough Priory by a group of freemen it was referred to as ‘meadow’. Now whether anyone actually lived up here at that time or whether it was part of the Priory’s many Commondale granges is unknown. After the dissolution, it was…
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Hob on the Hill
A pretty dreich morning. So no scenic photo today, the visibility as I crossed Gisborough Moor being about 50m. Notice the purple is not so vibrant today. Perhaps that could be down to the muted lighting, but it is an intensively managed moorland; I still think that’s a factor. This boundary stone named as Hob…
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Easington Miners’ Picnic
A day spent at Easington Colliery on the Durham Coast helping out at the National Trust’s stall at the annual miners’ picnic. The picnic began with a parade through the old surface works, now transformed into a community nature reserve. I was fascinated by the banners that were carried proudly depicting the union or colliery,…
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Today is not a good day if you’re paraskevidekatriaphobic
I dunno, you go away for a few days, and the moors are transformed. The ling has finally come good. (Although it must be said, Hutton Moor is not heavily managed, the spruce saplings give it away that it’s been a few years since this moor has been burnt.) But today is not a good…
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Siccar Point and The Father of Geology
In 1788, 62 year old Dr. James Hutton, physician, merchant, local farmer and self-taught geologist set out by boat for Siccar Point. He was accompanied by his friends, Sir James Hall and John Playfair. Hutton was in search of an ‘unconformity‘ which he thought would prove his revolutionary theory that the earth was millions of…