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I learnt a new word today …
Galeanthropy – the belief that you have become into a cat. A delusion. Not that you can turn into a cat at will, like a witch’s familiar, like Professor McGonagall from Harry Potter. That would be therianthropy. Therianthropy, another new word, is the belief in the ability to change into any animal. This shamanic belief…
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Capt. Cook’s Monument
A cracking day on the moors. Breaking virgin snow on Easby Moor, totally on my own, the first time since this pandemic struck. Capt. Cook’s Monument has been an attraction ever since it was built. One such visitor was William Stott Banks, a Victorian gentleman. In 1866, he published a guide book of Walks in…
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The Donkey Pond
I’ve been minded to feature this old whinstone quarry many times before but heavy summer bracken growth has always put paid to that. It’s one of many quarries that sprang up wherever the whinstone outcropped between Eaglescliffe and Sneaton High Moor. Between Cliff Rigg and Kildale there were several smaller and I guess short lived…
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Dry Stone Wall, Pinchinthorpe Moor
I just love the two tone look of a dry stone wall splattered with snow. This is on the edge of Pinchinthorpe Moor. In the background is of course Roseberry Topping. Roseberry Topping was at one time mooted for a monument to Captain James Cook. A monument had been discussed for forty years but, in…
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What’s below this pond on Newton Moor?
I’m guessing this is a manmade pond, at the head of Howden Gill. It’s not shown on the 1958 OS Map. I’ve photographed it before but have always assumed it to be on Great Ayton Moor, but on closer inspection it’s actually to the north of the Newton parish boundary, so strictly that will make…
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Once more into the clag
Not much to see today above the 300m contour. This is the Alec Falconer memorial seat on Cringle Moor. Alec Falconer was a founder member in 1912 of the “Middlesbrough and District Countrywide Holidays Association and Holiday Fellowship Rambling Club” which went on to become known as the Middlesbrough Rambling Club. He was also an…
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A dismal day
I don’t usually moan about the weather. Just accept it as it comes. But today is indeed a dismal day. At least the Ancient Egyptian astrologers thought so. They calculated certain days of the year to be unlucky or evil, and today, 4th February, was one of them. There were 24 of them altogether, two…
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Park Plantation Quarry Tramway
Hidden away in the forestry above Bank Foot is a tramway incline that served the sandstones quarries higher on Greenhow Bank. It first appears on the 1893 OS 25 inch map. Blocks of sandstone would have been lowered down to a siding by the Rosedale Ironstone railway. I guess here a bridge was built to…
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But what if Candlemas day is snowy, windy and foul …
It’s Candlemas, although it feels like just another Groundhog Day. Candlemas is a Christian feast day that sort of coincided with the pagan festival Imbolc, the mid-point between the winter solstice and Spring equinox. Feast days generally have some weather lore associated with them. Candlemas is no exception and there is a wealth of rhymes…
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And so, into February – mud, cabbage, cakes, and streaking
February, or as the Venerable Bede wrote ‘Solmonaþ‘ – Mud Month. (The ‘þ‘ is a thorn, a character used in Old English and pronounced similar to ‘th’ apparently. It is also used in modern Icelandic.) The view today is of Highcliff Nab taken from just below Black Nab across the fields of Codhill or Highcliffe…
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