Category: Coate Moor
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Monument Mine
On this day, June 8th, in 1850, legend has it that John Vaughan and John Marley were out shooting rabbits on Eston Nab. Marley tripped over a burrow and as he sprawled on the ground, his hand landed on the purest ironstone he had ever seen, “Eureka!” he cried. He had discovered vast main seam…
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A misty Coate Moor
“Mist muged on þe mor malt on þe mountez Uch hille hade a hatte a myst hakel huge” Two lines in Middle English from the medieval poem of Arthurian chivalry “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight”. Translated it says: The moor was muggy with mist, and the snow melted on the mountains, and each hill…
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Cook’s Crags overlooking Kildale
Named as Ward Nab on the largest scale maps but known affectionately as Cook’s Crags by the climbing community. The ling is blooming nicely, here seen in a more natural setting than the vast swathes of moorland with which it is normally associated. The low lying shrub has been used through the ages as a…
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An heffalump trap?
I visited this brick lined shaft on Tuesday but I wasn’t happy with the photos so a return visit today. It was a ventilation shaft for the Coate Moor Ironstone Mine. A furnace would have been at the bottom and the air warmed would rise drawing in fresh air from the main drift entrance. Coate…
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Strawberry Moon
Today is the longest day of the year. The summer solstice. And it’s a full moon. The last time we had a full moon on the summer solstice was in 1967. The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was top of the pops and Barclays bank was just days away from installing the first hole…