Out & About …

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

Category: Newton Moor

  • What’s below this pond on Newton Moor?

    What’s below this pond on Newton Moor?

    I’m guessing this is a manmade pond, at the head of Howden Gill. It’s not shown on the 1958 OS Map. I’ve photographed it before but have always assumed it to be on Great Ayton Moor, but on closer inspection it’s actually to the north of the Newton parish boundary, so strictly that will make…

  • Piss off early tomorrow’s Saturday

    Piss off early tomorrow’s Saturday

    It was a bit bleak on Newton Moor this Friday morning. In case you don’t recognise where I’m at, it is the ‘hole in the wall’ at Little Roseberry. Odin’s Hill should be visible on the far left. Odin’s wife was Frigg, a Norse goddess in her own right, and Friday is named after her,…

  • “It’s back to square one”

    “It’s back to square one”

    So headlined the Daily Mail this morning. Or as I heard on the radio; I didn’t actually read the paper. But it got me thinking where does that phrase come from. So I reached for my copy of the Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, the 1993 edition when the World Wide Web was still…

  • Who did this then?

    Who did this then?

    I noticed this last week. It’s hard to imagine it was accidental. Someone has gone to the effort of moving the stones to the side creating a clear route through. If a stonewaller had done that, the stones would have been laid out and graded, heavier stones nearer the gap, with receding rows of smaller…

  • Quagmires, Sphagnum moss and WW1 wound dressings

    Quagmires, Sphagnum moss and WW1 wound dressings

    If you find yourself stuck fast in an area of seemingly stable ground that suddenly gives way underfoot and leaves you becoming engulfed and unable to go forwards or backwards, you’ve probably found yourself in a quagmire. Obviously, there may be current political parallels but this is about quagmires in which the predominant vegetation is Sphagnum…

  • Cairn with two boundary stones

    Cairn with two boundary stones

    A glorious day. My attention was diverted by a pair of mewing buzzards but they kept too distant for my camera. So back to earth, on Newton Moor, one of a pair of Bronze Age round cairns with two partly buried boundary stones. One is inscribed “TKS 1815” and the other stone “RY 1752” on…

  • Moor Edge Stone

    Moor Edge Stone

    Another dull morning with a sky of corrugated grey cloud clipping the top of Roseberry. So an old favorite, the Moor Edge Stone marking the boundary between the parishes of Newton-under-Roseberry and Pinchinthorpe. Rendered in black and white in an attempt to emphasize the heavily weathered inscription of “TKS 1815” standing for Thomas Kitchingham Staveley…

  • Newton Moor

    Newton Moor

    The mosaic of a managed heather moor, managed to maximise the number of grouse. Heather is burnt to encourage young growth which the grouse feed on. Patches of tall old heather are left for nesting. Yet every square inch of land in the photo (beyond the boundary stone) is National Trust property. The heather was…

  • Sunrise over Great Hograh Moor

    Sunrise over Great Hograh Moor

    Early morning trot up to Newton Moor. Somewhere the sun is shining but a bank of cloud blocks it. A few birches left after the felling of the forestry on Black Bank, skeletonised for the winter. The graceful birch, one of the first trees to colonise Britain after the glaciers retreated. The wood is hard…

  • Bronze Age Round Cairn on a scorched moor

    Bronze Age Round Cairn on a scorched moor

    Sunday before last (18th) was a glorious November day. Blue skies, little wind with many walkers taking to the moors. I recall standing on Cliff Rigg and noticing the number of folk on Roseberry. But the scene was marred by dense black smoke coming from the direction of Newton and Great Ayton Moors. The periodic…