Month: December 2022
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Kingsdale
In spite of the dire forecast a pleasant morning with just the odd squall. This is Kingsdale in Yorkshire Dales. Just about the most westerly bit of Yorkshire, wedged between Gragareth and Whernside. That’s Whernside in the distance. The name is not as obviously explained as it seems, meaning “the valley where the cows were…
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The natural temptation, when standing on Highcliffe Nab is to look north over Guisborough town …
… this view is south — towards Highcliffe Farm, Codhill Slack and Percy Cross Rigg. Highcliffe Farm is an exposed location, gaining no shelter from both northerly and southerly winds. In 1908, it was being farmed by Thomas Wedgewood. One day Wedgwood and a farm labourer were snaring rabbits on the hillside when he noticed…
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The bleak moor under a sprinkling of snow
Overnight rain fell as snow on the high moor transforming the drab winter colours of the heather. The question is did the snow fall after midnight or before — in which case we will have had a white Christmas. The stone is the 19th-century boundary stone atop the round cairn on Newton Moor. It marks…
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“Lay pretty long in bed, and then rose, leaving my wife desirous to sleep, …
“… having sat up till four this morning seeing her mayds make mince-pies.” 356 years ago, the Pepyses may have had a lie-in, but we were up and about on Little Roseberry taking in the fresh air and blue skies. Samuel Pepys went on to complete his diary entry:— “I to church, where our parson…
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Ward Nab (aka Cook’s Crags)
Ward Nab on the edge of Coate Moor is much beloved by local climbers who know it simply as Cook’s Crags. It overlooks the sleepy village of Kildale — the dale of Chil — and used to host a medieval market. Even in more recent times it had a pub, a post office, and a…
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Where was I?
A very gloomy morning with low cloud covering the moors. So a “where was I?” conundrum for you at this festive time. But please, no spoilers, I will reveal the answer after Xmas. As you can see, the photo is of a stone boundary marker on some moorland and inscribed with the initials and year…
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Nanny Newgill, the Broughton Witch
On a drizzly Cold Moor this morning I was reminded of one of Richard Blakeborough’s tales about a witch who lived at Broughton. That’s Great Broughton on the Cleveland plain below, just left of centre. The peak of Roseberry Topping is on the skyline just right of centre. Blakeborough’s story appeared in the Northern Weekly…
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The story of Cleopatra’s Needle’s journey to Britain
The well-known monument to Capt. James Cook was erected in 1827. The design of an obelisk has led some to speculate a masonic connection. But the more probable reasoning was that obelisks were simply in vogue. In that year, Dublin had begun its erection of the Wellington Monument in Phoenix Park to commemorate victories by…
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Hanging Stone and the Vale of Mowbray
A circular walk from Osmotherley with the intention of having a gander at Nunhouse Farm, the site of a Benedictine nuns priory, just south of the village of Thimbleby. William Grainge wrote in 1859 of a hidden treasure “At a small farmhouse immediately in the plain below, called Nunhouse, near to Thimbleby Banks, tradition says,…
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“Spare the Trees”
“Two facts confront us, and deserve serious consideration. The forests of the world are going just as the coal beneath our feet is going — man is a cooking animal, and must have fuel. In all the great outlets of water floods multiply, and become more and more destructive. We are compelled to ask if…