Out & About …

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

  • Highcliff Nab

    Highcliff Nab

    “Overhanging the romantic and picturesque vale of Gisborough, a bold prominent rock rears its reverend head, hoary with mosses and lichens, and rent into vast chasms by the storms and tempests of centuries. It is skirted to the north with rich plantations of fir and venerable forests of oak; towards the south it is surrounded…

  • Bilsdale

    Bilsdale

    Upper Bilsdale, the dale of William the Bastard so the legend goes who became lost during his harrying of the North. The nearest farm is Whingroves with its inbye fields completely given over to the mass production of pheasant chicks. Inbye land is the most productive on an upland farm, often the closest to the…

  • Webder Wood

    Webder Wood

    A magical place. The lush green was spellbinding. Goredale Beck sprawls out over the dale bottom. Ash dominates its steep, verdant sides. Apparently home to two rare molluscs. A potential site for John Lambert’s mill which smelted lead ore mined high on Malham Moor in the 17th-century. Lambert lived with his family in Janet’s Cave,…

  • Malham Cove

    Malham Cove

    To Malham for the night. Not much sign of folks self-isolating; with the car park and roadside parking full, a farmer had opened up a field to capitalise on the tourists. And it’s only March. In the village, the Buck and several cafes all seemed to be doing a busy trade. In fact, the only…

  • Site of Summerhill Farm

    Site of Summerhill Farm

    In 1658 John Coulson, lord of the manor of Great Ayton, together with twenty other freeholders of the village made an agreement to enclose the ancient open fields and common pastures dividing them up amongst themselves. Sometime after this, the farm at Summerhill, nestling below Ayton Bank, would have been created. In spite of its…

  • Wesleyan Chapel, Bransdale

    Wesleyan Chapel, Bransdale

    In most villages and dales of the North York Moors, there will be a nonconformist chapel. Sometimes it will be a Wesleyan Methodist, sometimes a Primitive Methodist, sometimes some other dissenting religion. Often there may be two in close proximity. Nonconformity played such a major part in many communities it was often the dominant religious…

  • What, will these hands ne’er be clean?

    What, will these hands ne’er be clean?

    The current concern with the Coronavirus disease has been much compared to the 1918 influenza pandemic. Although this is commonly known as the Spanish Flu, current thinking is that the first cases were in 1916 in the field hospitals of the Western Front. By the time it had run its course it is estimated that…

  • Bilsdale sunset

    Bilsdale sunset

    A twilight navigation event. Such a great evening to be out on the moors. And for today’s completely irrelevant fact, it was on this day in 1629 that the Speaker of the House of Commons, Sir John Finch, tried to adjourn the House of Commons on the orders of King Charles I. He was held…

  • White Hill from Carr Ridge

    White Hill from Carr Ridge

    A view that will be familiar to walkers heading west along the Cleveland Way and Coast to Coast trails which both descend down to Haggs Gate or Clay Bank Top before climbing up Hasty Bank onto White Hill. The modern paved route is directed just off to the right but this cleft in the scarp…

  • 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…

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