Out & About …

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

  • Old Meggison

    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…

  • Chambered Cairn, Great Ayton Moor

    Chambered Cairn, Great Ayton Moor

    It was only when someone asked me over the Christmas holidays the whereabouts the chambered cairn on Great Ayton Moor, having failed to find it, I realised it had been a few years since I had last visited. So on a cold, damp, overcast morning, I figured it was as good a time as any…

  • Roseberry Common

    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…

  • A few moments later it was snowing

    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…

  • White Mare Crag

    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…

  • First snowdrops of the year

    First snowdrops of the year

    Early blooms, with the prospect of produce a fine carpet, and yellow acronites too. The church is All Saints at Ingleby Arncliffe, a small building conveniently situated next to the hall but a kilometre walk from the village. It was rebuilt in 1821 but the stonework to the doorway is said to be Norman. Open…

  • Whitby Abbey from Sandsend

    Whitby Abbey from Sandsend

    A right rowelly day at Sandsend. A great day for a walk on the beach. Down the coast, Whitby Abbey stands grandly on the cliffs veiled by the spray kicked up by the tummelly sea. Founded by Hild, the daughter of a Deiran prince, in the late 650s, the Abbey is most famous for the…

  • Cliff Rigg Quarry

    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…

  • Easterside Hill

    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)…

  • Wayside cross, Black Hill

    Wayside cross, Black Hill

    After a great exploration of Glaisdale Rigg, my final photo of the day. A stone’s throw from the where the car was parked, a Medieval wayside cross. Situated at the crossroads of Yarlesgate, the north-south pannierway linking Lealholm to Rosedale, and the east-west track from Glaisdale to Great Fryup Dale, down the very steep Beanley…

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