Out & About …

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

Category: Roseberry Topping

  • Bracken bashing on Roseberry Common

    Bracken bashing on Roseberry Common

    A wet return to volunteering for the National Trust after the Coronavirus lockdown. A nice simple task to ease the rusty joints: bracken bashing, which also has the benefit of enforcing social distancing. The common was sprayed last year with a bracken specific herbicide so today was just keeping on top on any persistent fronds.…

  • The Matthew Paris map

    The Matthew Paris map

    How do you like your maps? Do you treat them with reverence, still in their pristine covers and neatly filed numerically? Or are they coverless, coming apart at the seams through years of use and being folded in origami shapes to cram into a map case? The thing we all probably have in common is…

  • St. Swithin’s Day

    St. Swithin’s Day

    A damp run on the moors this morning. Light rain, hardly wetting the paving slabs on Coate Moor. Would it though, be enough to satisfy St. Swithin, who according to the legend, if it rained today (15th July), it will be the start of forty days of rain. He was bishop of Winchester Cathedral and…

  • 30 June 1934, the Night of the Long Knives

    30 June 1934, the Night of the Long Knives

    Strong winds and a threat of rain were keeping folks away from Roseberry this morning. I’ve gotten in the habit of avoiding the summit if crowded, so this was my first visit for a week or so. When this is posted, it’ll be 86 years since the leaders of the SA, the Nazi Party’s paramilitary…

  • On Roseberry summit

    On Roseberry summit

    A dash up Roseberry before the rain came. Not many folks up here today, bliss. A hazy view towards Guisborough. Open Space Web-Map builder Code

  • The Roseberry Hoard

    The Roseberry Hoard

    I’ve always tended to miss out Roseberry summit if I see it crowded, but I did bag the top today. Overcast but still clear enough for views to the Cleveland Hills, just a wisp of low cloud over Round Hill on Urra Moor. Upper left in the photo is Aireyholme Farm at the end of…

  • When Roseberry Topping wears a cap …

    When Roseberry Topping wears a cap …

    You know the rest, I won’t bother repeating. So Cleveland didn’t have a clap, but a dreich day with proper rain. The first since this lockdown began. Yet Odin’s hill heaved a sigh of relief. Relief that the woods of oak and moors are finally watered. Relief in the reduced visitor footfall, the all too…

  • Roseberry from Cockshaw Quarry

    Roseberry from Cockshaw Quarry

    What is this life if, full of care, We have no time to stand and stare. No time to stand beneath the boughs And stare as long as sheep or cows. No time to see, when woods we pass, Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass. No time to see, in broad daylight, Streams full…

  • A pair of hares

    A pair of hares

    Can you say a brace of hares? What is the collective noun for a group of hares? So many to choose from: a band, a down, a drove, a flick, a herd, a husk. I don’t like herd, but do two count as a group anyway? I haven’t the patience for nature photography so when…

  • Roseberry

    Roseberry

    It looks like the ending of this lockdown is going to be as mismanaged as its introduction, exacerbated by certain sections of the media. Judging by their front page, The Daily Mail now seems to be intent on generating animosity for teachers by suggesting they are cowards if they don’t risk their health. We currently…