Category: North York Moors
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Toad-under-a-harrow
At first, it’s all dreary drizzle, the kind that makes you question your decision to leave the comfort of indoors. But wait an hour, and the heavens part ways, allowing the sun to cast its golden glow upon Roseberry, turning it into a vision against the still brooding rain clouds. A rainbow always spruces up…
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Remembrance Sunday on Easby Moor
On Remembrance Sunday, a brisk stomp picking up the memorial on Easby Moor for the solemn service by the Cleveland Mountain Rescue Team has become an unspoken tradition. A simple plaque there pays tribute to the unfortunate crew aboard a Hudson airplane, their three lives ending on a bitter February morning in 1940. They had…
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Midnight Corner
Today’s post comes swift and direct, plucked from the heights of the Ingleby Incline, that rapid ascent from the Cleveland plain to the moor’s crest in just over a mile. Unveiled in 1861 and closed in 1929, this line’s purpose was to transport Rosedale Ironstone to the steel mills of Ferryhill in County Durham. Down…
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Ingleby Stone Quarry Company
Howling wind and relentless rain were more than enough to persuade me that a brisk walk on the open moor was no place to be. So, I cunningly decided to park up at Bank Foot and set out for a saunter in the sheltered woods that cover Ingleby Bank. I soon found myself on the…
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Smouts and Smeuses — A Cleveland Lexicon
Odd features of the landscape have always captivated my interest, though more often than not they tend to slip my mind upon returning home, overshadowed by more pressing matters. One of these curiosities is this kink in the dry-stone wall below Easby Moor. It’s almost as if two builders constructing the wall from opposite ends…
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An Overcast Day on Ainthorpe Rigg — A Dark Chapter in American History — Can Horrific Reprisals ever be Justified?
On a dreary day, I trudged over the wet moorland across Ainthorpe Rigg, under a dull and overcast sky. Reaching the edge, I found myself looking down at Little Fryup Dale, with Crossley Side sprawled below me. In the history of events that happened on this day, this morning, I had come across a chilling…
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Little Raisdale — A modest dale with a forgotten settlement and chapel
In the upper reaches of Raisdale, an eastern prong stretches out to the edge of the Cleveland Hills between Cold Moor and Cringle Moor. Right of centre in the photo stands Hall Garth Farm, a name which suggests a once grand manor-house, standing proudly on the land. To its left, there used to be a…
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Late afternoon on Cliff Rigg
A morning spent volunteering alongside the National Trust, cutting sycamore saplings in Cliff Rigg Wood. Not exactly a photogenic opportunity, but later the dog was insistent that we ascend the ridge to bask in the waning afternoon sun. There, the lighting nicely highlighted a strange remnant from a bygone industrial era, the rocky pinnacle once…
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Three Howes — Heritage in flames
I felt a deep sadness upon coming across this recent burning on a bowl barrow on Gisborough Moor. These bowl barrows are historical landmarks, and government regulations explicitly state that burning “must not … damage important monuments”. I suppose those responsible might argue that the burning was a “cool burn”, not reaching the peat underneath.…
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United Nations Day
With the promise of rain in the forecast and a list of errands to do in Stokesley, a swift blast up Roseberry was the imperative for the day. “How many roads must a man walk down Before you call him a man?” In 1962, so Bob Dylan sang, and, during my formative years, I couldn’t…