Out & About …

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

  • Saltburn Sands

    Saltburn Sands

    When Malcolm Campbell took his 350hp Sunbeam Grand Prix Blue Bird for a spin along Saltburn Sands on 17 June 1922 he reached 138.08 mph, a world land speed record at the time although this was not recognised as the timekeepers had used stopwatches instead of the electrical timing apparatus required by the official rules.…

  • Robin Hood’s Bay

    Robin Hood’s Bay

    The best time to view the huge arc of Robin Hood’s Bay is at low tide when long curves of the rock strata are exposed. The Jurassic rocks of the Yorkshire coast were already old when the two of the plates that make up the earth’s surface collided causing buckling and folding of the strata,…

  • Castleton

    Castleton

    The location of the Norman castle after which the village of Castleton is named is today occupied by the large house with the circular towers showing what would have been the castle’s commanding position overlooking the River Esk. It was a motte castle without a bailey or courtyard with a stone keep with walls 13′…

  • Tea on the Topping

    Tea on the Topping

    It’s that time of the year again. The annual National Trust’s “Tea on the Topping”, tea and a delicious selection of homemade cakes on offer on Cleveland’s Matterhorn. The bright sunny day attracting hundred’s of climbers. How many people can you get on Roseberry? Open Space Web-Map builder Code

  • Cold Moor

    Cold Moor

    A view from Cringle Moor across to Cold Moor, one of the four bumps so obvious from the Cleveland plain. The footpath followed by the Cleveland Way and Coast to Coast long distance paths can be seen climbing to the 401m summit. The spoil heaps bottom left are 19th-century jet workings, the miners seeking the…

  • Robin’s pincushion

    Robin’s pincushion

    Every so often nature springs a surprise. This dog rose in Cliff Ridge Wood appears to have grown some pretty little red “flowers”. These are in fact galls, a reaction in the plant tissue to the laying of eggs in the leaf buds by a gall wasp, Diplolepis rosae. The wasp lays up to 60…

  • Dovedale

    Dovedale

    A stream meanders through the meadows of this lovely steep-sided valley, a National Trust property on the edge of Dalby Forest. Higher up the dale becomes narrower and is known as Dovedale Griff, formed by glacial melt-water from ice fields at the end of the last ice age. When the climate warmed and the permanent…

  • Highcliff Gate

    Highcliff Gate

    It’s Yorkshire Day, a day when social media is full of memes saying “eeh by gum” and “ey up”. It seems appropriate then to have a photo of Yorkshire. A not too difficult a task and could be the within the old county of Yorkshire of course. This is Highcliff Gate, the low point between…

  • Ingleby Manor Ironstone Mine

    Ingleby Manor Ironstone Mine

    Armed with a six-digit grid reference I have twice tried to locate the remains of the Ingleby Manor Ironstone Mine, and twice failed. The grid reference I obtained from the Catalogue of Cleveland Ironstone Mines by Peter Tuffs, the guru of local industrial archaeology. It was with trepidation then to discover it was to be…

  • Yarm Castle

    Yarm Castle

    There is documentary evidence that Yarm did indeed once have a castle. There was a gift of land to the hospital of St. Nicholas, juxta castellarium. A castellarium is the precinct or jurisdiction of a castle and juxta or iuxta is Latin for alongside. The hospital itself was founded by the wealthy and powerful de…

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