Month: May 2022
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On Gisborough Moor
With a rather dull view across the patchwork moors of Codhill Heights and Great Ayton Moor to Capt. Cook’s Monument. In the foreground, the triangulation pillar on Gisborough Moor, 324m above sea level. Or 1,063 feet as our esteemed Prime Minister would have it. Or maybe he prefers cubits — a cubit being the distance between […]
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It saw me before I heard it
The curlew, the Eurasian Curlew to be precise, Numenius arquata, the darling of the grouse moor owners. Their relative success in breeding on our moors is the keepers’ justification for the trapping of every predator which has a taste for grouse chicks. It’s their vindication that estates managed for shooting are rich in bio-diversity. An […]
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Shit Sack Day
Two years ago I posted about Royal Oak Day, 29th May, to commemorate when Charles II returned to London and was restored as King in 1660. On this day, true Royalists wear a sprig of oak leaves in recognition of Charles’s escape by hiding in an oak tree at Boscobel House, Shropshire, after his defeat […]
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Fangdale Beck
I find it frustrating photographing villages, there are always cars parked along the lanes and many interesting buildings have undergone conversion into residential. Take for example the methodist chapel at Fangdale Beck, half way down Bilsdale. Built in 1927, last used in 1984, and since converted. To me, it is a rather unusual methodist chapel […]
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Newly painted Roseberry trig point
Roseberry’s trig point received a fresh coat of brillant white this morning. A clean canvas for a new generation of graffiti artists. How long until the first arrives?
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May Blossom
I hadn’t realised until recently just how short flowering seasons are. Snowdrops, Daffodils, Blackthorn. We’re just spent three weeks away. Before leaving, the Bluebells were only just beginning to carpet the woods, now they’re past their sell-by date and going to seed. Appropriately towards the end of May, the May or Hawthorn tree has burst […]
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Park Nab
On This Day 25th May 1659, “His Most Serene Highness By the Grace of God, Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland, and the Dominions thereunto belonging” the Lord Protector Richard Cromwell resigned his position. So ended our flirtation with republicanism, leading to the restoration of the monarchy and the crowning of […]
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The Cleveland Way
Buy any Ordnance Survey 1:25,000 map nowadays and you’ll find it criss-crossed by lines of green diamonds — the symbol for a National Trail or Long Distance Path. In 1965, the first such trail was launched, The Pennine Way, and the second was our very own Cleveland Way, opened four years later on this day, […]
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Loch Lubnaig
An easy morning walk up An Sidhean after yesterday’s exertions. A bit misty at the top but lovely views of Loch Lubnaig with its interesting alluvial spit where the River Balvag flows in. So perculiar is this natural levee that it has a name — Roinn Mhór. It’s actually a “prograding delta” where sediment from […]
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Stùc a’Chròin
I’ve always fancied doing the Stùc a’Chròin Hill Race but never had the opportunity. I sort of walked the course today from Strathyre up and over the Meall Mór ridge into Glen Ample before the climb up the 184th highest Munro Wikipedia says the name Stùc a’Chròin means the peak of harm or danger, but […]