Author: Fhithich
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Dub, Great Ayton Moor
A ‘dub‘ is a Northern word for a patch of water, which could be anything from a puddle on a path or road to a pool in a river, deep enough for swimming or a favoured fishing mark. The earliest attestation is in a perambulation of the liberty of Ripon in 1481. Sometimes a stream…
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Saltburn quiz question
What’s the connection in this photo between: the final resting place of a king of beasts World War 2 espionage the disgraced presenter of the TV show ‘Jim’ll Fix It’ the great-great-grandfather of the Duke of York Scroll down for the answer. The answer is Teddy’s Nook, the two-storey stone ‘cottage’ perched high on the…
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Hanging Stone
A dash around one of my regular routes before the weather was due to change. Through Newton Wood, up Hanging Stone, and then on to Roseberry. There were the remains of a fire on the Hanging Stone. Folk mulling over the meaning of life gathered around a campfire. An activity which has probably gone on…
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Autumnity
We’re well and truly into autumn, a morning chill, a low sun and a palette of russett and golds. Bracken is a formidable plant. It’s been around since the dinosaurs, with fossil records going back over the last 55 million years. But its success represents a real threat to biodiversity, shading out other plants, producing…
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Nothing to see here …
Just a scene of everyday countryfolk mingling prior to exercising their natural right to kill the red grouse, Lagopus lagopus scotica. The keepers, beaters and general folk of a lower class were mustering out of shot. Grouse shooting has been declared an “organised outdoor sport” or “licensed outdoor physical activity” and as such is exempted…
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Byland Abbey
In its heyday, Byland Abbey ranked alongside Rievaulx and Fountains as one of the three great monasteries of the north. But the Cistercian order from Savigny took 43 years to found a permanent site for their monastery. It began across the Pennines when, in 1134, a community of monks from Furness Abbey set out to…
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New signs
New signs have appeared on Roseberry. A bit late, summer being almost over. Shame it’s come to this. How long before it is trashed? I wonder what percentage of the population has actually heard of the Countryside Code. Open Space Web-Map builder Code
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Creag Meagaidh from Coire Ardair
Coire Ardair is a classic glacial corrie, the Lochan a’Choire surrounded by a back wall of steep precipitous crags. The name of the high point, the Munro Creag Meagaidh, means in Gaelic, the crag of the boggy place, referring I guess to the boggy summit plateau. Early 20th-century climbers referred to the mountain as Craig…
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Sunset over Eigg and Rùm
A fitting finale to this year’s Scottish trip. Tomorrow we begin the journey south. Open Space Web-Map builder Code
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Airsaig Canal
Surely the last thing you would expect to find in the Western Highlands would be a canal, the Crinan and the Caledonian excepted of course. But there’s another one in Arisaig. It was built to enable timber to be floated down from a sawmill at Loch nan Eala to the sea. The lade, to give…