Category: North York Moors
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Paddy’s Hole
Out of the slag from Teesside’s blast furnaces Irish navvies built this small harbour at the mouth of the Tees. A refuge from the north-easterly winds. It’s a little community, but a sad, decaying community, where low tide exposes decades of discard and rotting boats that won’t ever float again. It’s also an unwelcoming place,…
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Rosedale Abbey
One of the honeypots of the Moors, Rosedale Abbey emerged as a planned village during the 19th-century with buildings in the Gothic style. Very little remains of the Cistercian nunnery from which the village takes its name, just an angle with two buttresses and a few steps of a spiral staircase. The expansion of the…
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Burns Night
Cleveland is a land of glacial outliers. Roseberry Topping, Freeborough Hill, Blakey Topping and, of course, Whorl Hill. Apparently, at a mere 237m high, it is the 2226th tallest hill in England, which I must admit I do find hard to believe. To the right of the hill are the ruins of Whorlton Castle which…
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Bridestone Griff
A slight covering of snow completely transforms the otherwise drab winter colours of Bridestones Moor. The is the upper reaches of Bridestone Griff. A griff is a North Yorkshire term for a deep, narrow valley, said to have formed by glacial melt-water, and sure enough, lower down, the glen does become steep but here, high…
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Old Meggison
Usually, mornings are my best time of the day. Of late, however, my morning stroll has been in the damp and cold followed by an ever brightening day long after my post lunch torpor and sluggishness has set in. Another revisit today. Old Meggison, a lovely little waterfall on the River Leven in Kildale. It’s…
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Roseberry Common
A glorious morning on Roseberry. The light overnight snow has highlighted the scars left by 19th century jet mining. The spoil still sterile after all these years. The hard black fossil of the Monkey Puzzle tree has been prized for jewellery since the Bronze Age but it was made fashionable by Queen Victoria after the…
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A few moments later it was snowing
Well, it was white and it was falling from the sky. I’m not sure if the Inuit, with their fifty words for snow, would have one for the snow that fell over Capt. Cook’s Monument early this morning but the Scots do have a nice word flindrikin usually a light, flimsy garment but which was…
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White Mare Crag
Perhaps better known as Whitestone Cliff. The Calcareous Grit crag is supposed to have formed in the eighteen century when the steep scarp slope slumped, an occurrence recorded by the Rev. John Wesley, the Methodist preacher, in his journal: “1755. On Thursday, March 25th, many persons observed a great noise near a ridge of mountains…
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Cliff Rigg Quarry
Former whinstone quarry that dominates the modest Cliff Ridge overlooking the village of Great Ayton. The whinstone seam is part of the Cleveland Dyke, a protrusion of very hard volcanic rock cutting through the surrounding soft sedimentary rocks. It was formed 58 million years ago from a volcano near the Isle of Mull and can…
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Easterside Hill
Lower Bilsdale and the distinctive bulk of Easterside Hill with its limestone cap dominating the confluence of the Rivers Septh and Rye. Seen from Ayton Bank on the edge of Rievaulx Moor on a dull overcast morning. Interestingly, a Dornier Do217 of the German Luftwaffe crashed into north end of Easterside Hill (to the right)…