Out & About …

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

Tag: National Trust

  • Social distancing on Roseberry

    Social distancing on Roseberry

    Should I feel guilty? On the one hand, we have our snollygoster of a Prime Minister saying that it is OK to go out for exercise (not that I would necessarily believe anything he says); silence (as of today) of all official advice from the Government and the NHS on being out in the countryside;…

  • Tarn Hows

    Tarn Hows

    If you were to look at a calendar of the Lake District, one of the months is sure to feature Tarn Hows. It is one of its most picturesque views. Yet it is entirely manmade. Until James Garth Marshall, whose father, John Marshall, had made the family fortune from his flax mills in Leeds, began…

  • Finally a sunny morning and an escape from the mud

    Finally a sunny morning and an escape from the mud

    Looking down from Cockle Scar onto the village of Newton-under-Roseberry. A cold morning with just enough frost to harden the clarty paths. In the shade of the north-west slope, it’ll be a couple of hours yet before it’s warmed by the winter sun. At the western end of the village, the roof of the National…

  • The prehistoric linear boundary at Bridestones

    The prehistoric linear boundary at Bridestones

    Working on the prehistoric linear boundary at Bridestones Moor for the National Trust today and this morning I got drenched. My 20-year-old waterproofs let me down. It rained so heavy we sat it out at one point in the pickup. But the good news is the new fencing is now finished. It has taken three…

  • Rampike, Bridestones Moor

    Rampike, Bridestones Moor

    A rampike is the skeletal remains of a dead tree, in this case, a triple trunked birch standing alone on a windswept moor. The word comes from Canada but probably originated back in England in the 16th-century. It is thought the “ram” element means raven, i.e. as a perch favoured by these birds. It was…

  • Cotoneaster, Roseberry Common

    Cotoneaster, Roseberry Common

    The lull before Storm Brendon. Sporadic sunshine and a meander around Roseberry Common. This small tree full of brightly coloured red berries stood out amongst the muted browns and greens of the winter foliage. Berries bigger and redder than haws, not a rowan. Whereas birds have been almost stripped the neighbouring rowans and hawthorns bare…

  • The National Trust, 125 years old today

    The National Trust, 125 years old today

    On this day in 1895 three Victorian philanthropists, Miss Octavia Hill, Sir Robert Hunter and Canon Hardwicke Rawnsley met and founded the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty. Octavia Hill had campaigned about the poor availability of open spaces for poor people and developments on suburban woodlands. She had helped to…

  • St. Nicholas’s “gold balls”

    St. Nicholas’s “gold balls”

    After the season’s festivities, the big cleanup begins. Roseberry is no different. A morning spent litter picking with the National Trust. The usual: cans, plastic bottles, little doggie presents. And plenty of orange peel scattered around, accompanied by the inevitable wet-wipe. What’s the big thing about oranges at Christmas? St. Nicholas’s “gold balls”. Of course,…

  • Clumber Lake and Church

    Clumber Lake and Church

    The country estates of Clumber, Welbeck and Thoresby are known collectively as the Dukeries. Clumber was the seat of the Duke of Newcastle. It was a remnant of Sherwood Forest until he had the estate landscaped in the 18th-century. With an impressive circumference of eleven miles, The Duke created deer parks, woodland, gardens and had…

  • Ounsbury toppin hill

    Ounsbury toppin hill

    So Christopher Saxton annotated the hill in his Atlas of the Counties of England and Wales which he published in 1579. Commissioned by Elizabeth I, it was the first definitive map of England and Wales with each county being engraved on a separate copper plate on a scale of 1″ to 3⅓ miles. Maps were…