Pot Luck

Hall Wood in Farndale hides a solid, well-made track, the sort that suggests purpose and history. It is said to have led to a sawpit. If so, it kept its secret well today. I found the path, but not the pit. The wood was less forthcoming than the National Trust’s heritage records. Timber once mattered […]

Two swans drift across the shrunken waters of Margrove Pond, looking strangely out of place in a wetland that has seen so much reshaping and had so much optimism. This 18-acre site, given to the Cleveland Wildlife Trust in 1993, lies on land once called “The Carrs,” a name that simply meant swampy ground. The […]

It was pretty dreich this morning as we  crested Shaw Ridge and dropped into Bransdale. I can not remember the last time the church at the head of the dale could not be seen. It’s a lovely little church, which Pevsner says “must be c. 1800” yet according to the parish website it was built […]

One of my favourite races during my dalliance with fellrunning was the Lake District Mountain Trial, an event of some tradition that is held annually on the second Sunday in September each year. My engagement has dwindled over time to the modest role of manning a checkpoint, a role that usually entails little more than […]

An earlyish start for a walk back home from Pinchinthorpe and once again, setting out in the dull and gloom and thick cloud. Almost home and out pops a sunbeam, a phenomenon which in naval slang would have been termed a ‘Jacob’s Ladder‘. And the sun shone on Aireyholme Farm, and the fields south and […]