Out & About …

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

Month: September 2021

  • Craze Naze

    Craze Naze

    What a lovely assonant name, although many Cleveland Way walkers will no doubt pass it without giving it a second thought, eager to get to Whitby or Robin Hood’s Bay, in whichever direction they are heading. On the Six-inch Ordnance Survey map of 1853, it is named as Dobson’s Nab. I wonder who Dobson was.…

  • Kildale

    Kildale

    The ‘village green’ at Kildale. Another glorious morning. And Michaelmas day to boot. St Michael’s Day, 29th September, the Feast of Michael and All Angels, one of the traditional four ‘quarter days’ in a year, the other being Lady Day (25th March), Midsummer (24th June), and Christmas (25th December). On these religious festivals, the agricultural…

  • Sandstone Quarry, Easby Bank

    Sandstone Quarry, Easby Bank

    A bit chilly but a lovely morning. This is an old sandstone or ‘freestone’ quarry on Easby Bank. A ‘bank’ is a Yorkshire term for “a steep hillside, often with a road taking a direct route from top to bottom”. But the Ordnance Survey on their Six-inch England and Wales, 1856 map annotated ‘Easby Bank’…

  • Recent rockfall, Roseberry

    Recent rockfall, Roseberry

    Spotted this morning, it must be fairly recent. Nothing untoward, just part of the natural weathering process. Imperceivable then suddenly … My first thought was that the enigmatic carved face of Roseberry was lying face-down but it’s actually on the lower crag. An odd carving, not exactly a Michelangelo but somehow quite intriguing. The big…

  • The Snake Path

    The Snake Path

    What a change from yesterday. Blue skies and autumnal warmth. William Clough and the Ashop valley. William Clough, a notorious climb up to Ashop Head, the route of an ancient path from Hayfield to the Snake Inn. Yesterday’s post featured Ashop Clough, down which the Snake Path descends. On the 29th May 1897, an agreement…

  • Ashop Clough

    Ashop Clough

    A rather cloudy circuit of the Kinder Scout plateau with the clag briefly clearing on Fairbrook Naze to open up this view of Ashop Clough, a deep gorge down which the ancient path from Hayfield to the former Snake Inn passes. The aim had been to visit the newly recognised highest point of the plateau,…

  • Mount Famine ridge

    Mount Famine ridge

    Looking back towards the village Hayfield in Derbyshire from the ominously named Mount Famine. The  name is supposed to date from the late-18th to early-19th-century Enclosure Acts when local landowners agreed to parcel up the land between them including common land. Farmer who once provided services and a proportion of their produce to the Lord…

  • Bransdale

    Bransdale

    Lovely autumn sunshine today in Bransdale. Not so back in 1845, when the Preston Chronicle reported a ‘REMARKABLE OCCURRENCE IN THE DALES‘: On Tuesday, the 17th ult., the inhabitants of Bransdale and Farndale were much surprised, and even alarmed, by the appearance of a very dark cloud, from which depended something like an arm, or…

  • St. Hilda’s Chapel, Kildale

    St. Hilda’s Chapel, Kildale

    My penultimate day at the archaeological dig in Kildale which I have been involved with all summer. The site will soon be winterised until next year. It is thought the stone walls are the remains of a medieval chapel dedicated to St. Hilda, which was located through detective work by members of the Hidden Valleys…

  • Mine Rescue team

    Mine Rescue team

    I came across a mine rescue team training on Roseberry today. An unreal sight, dressed in full PPE and carrying masks, helmets and oxygen packs, it must have been a very exhausting day for them. I assume this training in broad daylight is a preliminary exercise for kit familiarity. They belong to Triton Mines Rescue…