Out & About …

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

Category: Commondale

  • Commondale from the south

    Commondale from the south

    The quiet village of Commondale, once a hive of industrial activity. Best known is the brickworks of the Cleveland Fire Brick and Pottery Company which occupied the small dale behind old school and St Peter’s Church built with its distinctive red bricks. This was started in 1860 by John Slater Pratt, a printer from Stokesley,…

  • Commondale

    Commondale

    Most people associate Commondale with the small collection of houses centred around the Cleveland Inn at the bottom of Sand Hill Bank. But Commondale only really begins there and ends downstream at the confluence of Commondale Beck with the River Esk. A narrow, secluded dale, about 4km long. Cyclists using the bridleway between Foul Green…

  • Post medieval trod from Stokesley to Whitby

    Post medieval trod from Stokesley to Whitby

    I stumbled across this today quite by accident. A small section of a stone trod running parallel to and about 20 metres from the Commondale to Three Howes Rigg modern road. It is recorded on the NYM NP Historical Environment Records (HER) map as “a section of the post-medieval trod or trackway from White Cross…

  • Cross ridge dyke, Skelderskew Moor

    Cross ridge dyke, Skelderskew Moor

    An evocative alignment of standing stones continuing down to North Ings Slack between Commondale and Skelderskew Moors. The stones are part of a dyke, an earth bank with a ditch dug alongside both of which have mellowed over time. The dyke extends for some half a kilometre from the Hob on the Hill boundary stone…

  • Haggaback Farm

    Haggaback Farm

    This must be one of the highest farms on the moors. Haggaback Farm stands almost 800 feet above sea level on Commondale Moor. A bleak and exposed spot. Most farms are usually sited in the middle of their network of fields, to minimise distances travelled. Haggaback is strangely at the edge of the high moorland,…

  • Commondale

    Commondale

    Commondale is quite a short valley. Commondale Beck is barely 2 miles long from the meeting of Ravensgill Beck and Sleddale Beck and its confluence with the River Esk. The hamlet of the same name lies at the “head” of the valley. This photo was taken on Commondale Moor with some old drainage ridges noticeable…

  • White Cross

    White Cross

    You might be forgiven for thinking that White Cross is so named because it is white but the whitewashing has been carried out by all the boundary stones of the Dawnay Estate. The stone post is actually 19th century sandstone but the limestone base is much older probably medieval. The original Christian cross now resides in…

  • Bus Shelter, Three Howes Rigg

    Bus Shelter, Three Howes Rigg

    In 2014 this bus stop was nominated as the most loneliest in the UK in the BBC magazine. It’s two kilometres from the nearest house at Commondale and once a fortnight the No. 26, operating from Glaisdale to Guisborough, passes at 10:30 in the morning (alternate Thursdays excluding public or bank holidays). That leaves you with two hours forty…

  • Heather Burning

    Heather Burning

    In all directions plumes of smoke can be seen on the moors on a good day at this time of the year. The gamekeepers are burning the heather. Grouse feed on heather. Young shoots provide the best nutritional value but grouse require taller heather for nesting and cover. To provide a managed supply of young heather patches of heather are…