Category: Bilsdale
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Cheese, Stones, and a Summer Solstice Alignment
I’ve been diving back into that book, “Rock Art and Ritual,” the one I got off eBay a few weeks back. It’s been giving me the itch to go revisit some of the out of the way nooks and crannies on the North York Moors. So today, I took a little jaunt around Urra Moor,…
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Chop Gate—a quintessential collection of cottages
In the heart of idyllic Bilsdale, nestled among the high moors, lies Chop Gate with this collection of charming sandstone cottages. Their roofs are adorned with typical pantiles, exhibiting the distinctive S-shaped cross-section—a design that crossed the North Sea from Holland to Britain in the 17th century. Since the start of the 18th century, these…
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The iconic Bilsdale Mast has reached its final heights
Located on the east side of Bilsdale, Ellermire is a working farm that also holds significant historical value as the site of a medieval grange. The name ‘Ellermire’ is derived from an earlier Anglian settlement and refers to a ‘swan pool’. However, the true point of interest in the accompanying photo lies on the skyline…
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Lord Feversham’s Legacy: A peep into the history of Bilsdale
The main north-south route in the western half of the North York Moors winds through the beautiful Bilsdale valley. From the northern point of Clay Bank to the southern point of Newgate Bank, the dale is dotted with farms that boast vast fields of pasture, all bounded by sturdy dry-stone walls. The farms are enclosed…
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Cheshire Stone
On the lip of Urra Moor, overlooking the village of Urra. I wonder what came first: the moor or the village? It is said the name might derive from the Norse ‘haugr‘ meaning a hill. Or it could from the Old English word for dirty — ‘horheht‘/’horhig‘/’horuweg‘ — apparently Try speaking the words without pronouncing…
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Ladhill Gill
Ladhill Beck separates the parish of Hawnby from Bilsdale Westside. The upper reaches have a desolate feel with forlorn farmsteads: Honey Hill, Sike House, Low and High Twaites, Hazelshaw House, Sod Hall, Weather House, and Bumper Castle. That’s Bumper Castle in the photo, right of centre. It seems to have grown more forlorn since the…
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Fangdale Beck
I find it frustrating photographing villages, there are always cars parked along the lanes and many interesting buildings have undergone conversion into residential. Take for example the methodist chapel at Fangdale Beck, half way down Bilsdale. Built in 1927, last used in 1984, and since converted. To me, it is a rather unusual methodist chapel…
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The lonely death of Christopher Hutchinson
A farm with a strange name, Stingamires. Named after the gill beyond. But what came first, the farm or the gill? The farmhouse and attached outbuilding are Grade II Listed. The farmhouse was built in the 17th-century as a thatched longhouse typical of the North York Moors and containing a full cruck truss. A year…
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Bracing Bilsdale
I find there’s something bracing about being out after a fresh fall of snow. Particularly an unexpected fall of snow. This is Bilsdale, looking south from Hasty Bank. The settlement left of centre is the hamlet of Urra. Elgee wrote that “it is a trite axiom geology that the width of a valley and not…
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Joan Hutton-Wilson Memorial
I’ve come across this memorial before, in a bracken infested copse just off the steep Trenet Bank out of Bilsdale. I was almost surprised to find it: 1968 Joan Hutton-Wilson who loved Bilsdale Not that I thought it would have disappeared. The main photo is the view from the memorial. Chop Gate is centre, the…