Category: Westerdale
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Waites House Farm, Westerdale
On 13th January 1858 the Teesdale Mercury carried a report: “SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION – An instance of spontaneous ignition among alum shale has lately occurred in the parish of Westerdale in the North Riding. At a certain point in Westerdale Head the process of jet mining has been carried on for some time past, and a…
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Westerdale and Crown End
Westerdale, as the name suggests is the westernmost dale of the valley of the River Esk, although why Westerdale and not just Eskdale is lost to time. It’s a dale which has escaped the 19th-century mineral extraction of other valleys. There was some jet mining but this was mostly small scale and has not left…
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Armouth Wath
The North York Moors is not renown for its coalfields, but in the late 18th-century, coal was being mined here but on a much smaller scale than the deeper coalfields in other parts of the country. ‘Moor Coal’ seams are thin, usually between 15 and 55 cm. thick and generally occur in three bands, the…
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Crown End
A run from Kildale to Castleton. Took a slight detour to look at the ancient bronze age settlement remains on Crown End of Westerdale Moor. The end is a spur, due north of the village of Westerdale at a height of 236 metres. Plenty of humps and bumps and a bits of rocks but not…
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Stockdale
An offshoot of Westerdale penetrating deep into Baysdale Moor. Castleton and Danby Riggs in the distance. At the foot of the dale was the medieval hamlet of Braithwaite, signifying an area cleared of woodland. Today, there are just a handful of scattered farms, Leath House, Hill House, Daleside Farm and, on the left, New House…
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Old Ralph
11th-century wayside cross, often confused with Young Ralph, a taller cross standing a couple of hundred metres further north-east by the side of the Castleton to Blakey road. Even that prolific author Alfred J Brown got it wrong. Ralph was supposedly the bishop of Guisborough and the cross is a memorial to him. It is…
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Esklets
The very upper reaches of the River Esk, an island of old improved land surrounded by moorland. Land which somehow managed to escape being classified as Access Land under the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 even though it was last farmed in the 1950s. Activity now seems to be devoted to the grouse…
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Young Ralph
Walked into Bransdale Mill yesterday with a Duke of Edinburgh training group in what turned out to be a glorious day. The journey out today turned interesting. The cross known as Young Ralph is probably medieval and to me always looks better in wintry conditions. It is perhaps best known as the logo of the…
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Dale Head Bee Boles
Do other animals exhibit man’s craving for sweetness? I guess bears do, or at least Winnie the Pooh does. It is said that the refinement of sugar originated in the Indian subcontinent in prehistory. The Crusaders brought it back to Europe and but it wasn’t until the development of sugar plantations in the West Indies…
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Young Ralph Cross
I thought I had seen the last of the snow on the North York Moors. It is, after all, April! The Young Ralph Cross is perhaps the best-known wayside cross in the National Park, it appears on their logo. Supposedly erected by as a guidepost by the nuns of Rosedale Priory in the 13th-century after…