Out & About …

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

  • Ingleby Arncliffe

    Ingleby Arncliffe

    From Beacon Scar looking down on the Vale of Mowbray and the twin villages of Ingleby Arncliffe and Ingleby Cross, now merged into one. Both are mentioned in the Domesday Book although the names imply earlier settlements. Ingleby is simply the village of the Angles whereas Arncliffe is a mixture of Old English and Old…

  • 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,…

  • Old gate posts, Halliday Slack

    Old gate posts, Halliday Slack

    A slack is a word frequently found in the names of the very upper tributaries of moorland becks. It’s a northern word for the marshy shallow area between two stretches of rising ground. Yet Halliday Slack is a steep, precipitous gorge in the escarpment of the Cleveland Hills between Kirby and Broughton Banks. Thirty metres…

  • Former “Equine Trecking Cente”

    Former “Equine Trecking Cente”

    A photo taken for posterity. This former “Equine Trecking Cente” (sic) on Dikes Lane below Gribdale Terrace has planning permission to be converted into a “Cycle Hire Shop, Cafe and Holiday Accommodation”. It was built in 1973 as an equine trekking centre with car parking for 20 cars but I can not remember it ever…

  • Lonscale Fell with Skiddaw in the distance

    Lonscale Fell with Skiddaw in the distance

    The problem with the internet it is so easy to get sidetracked. I searched for “Skiddaw” and came across a couple of proverbs listed in scans of 18th-century books courtesy of Google. “The Critical Review: Or, Annals of Literature, Volume 46” by “A Society of GENTLEMEN” published in 1778 has this in a chapter on…

  • Blencathra Mine

    Blencathra Mine

    An intriguing long sunken pit alongside the Glenderaterra River that’s been conveniently used as a dump for rusting stock fencing. It looks like a waterwheel pit to me and probably used to provide power to pump out the shaft of the Blencathra Lead Mine which was last worked in 1875. This is the southernmost working…

  • Cumbrian Sunset

    Cumbrian Sunset

    A cracking end to the day after a windy climb this morning up Halls Ridge into the cloud. Not much of a view from the top of Blencathra and no hanging around. Came out of the mist on the zig-zags down Blease Fell to blue skies. Sunset was at 15.53 today so this is about…

  • The Cloven Stone

    The Cloven Stone

    On Mungrisedale Common, the north side of Blencathra. In the distance Back o’ Skiddaw with Skiddaw House just below the cloud. This distinctive rock marked the boundary of the Lordship of Threlkeld, land that was claimed in the medieval times by the de Threlkeld family. Tenants had rights to graze their animals, cut wood and…

  • Belmont Ironstone Mine

    Belmont Ironstone Mine

    The drift entrance to the mine which operated between 1907-1931 although no ore was extracted after 1921. It has been deliberately blocked for public safety. The brick building behind is an electrical sub-station and probably dates from 1914 when an electric sirocco fan was installed to replace the old method of ventilation by lighting a…

  • Robin Hoods Butts

    Robin Hoods Butts

    The large expanse of heather moorland between Scaling Dam and Danby Beacon is one of the bleakest moors and at its bleakest at the height of the winter. I am reminded of Christina Rossetti’s poem published under the title “A Christmas Carol”: In the bleak mid-winter Frosty wind made moan; Earth stood hard as iron,…

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