Month: December 2017
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Oxbow pond near Holmes Bridge
Today is the winter solstice, the shortest day. From now we can look forward to longer days. On the River Leven, just upstream of Holmes Bridge is an oxbow lake, an old loop of the river. It had almost silted up but is now being used to re-flood when the river is high. Wattle fencing…
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St. Thomas’s Day
December 20th, the feast of St. Thomas, or Doubting Thomas as he is sometimes referred because he doubted Jesus’s resurrection, was a bit of a special day for Yorkshire folk. The Rev. Atkinson in the 19th-century wrote of the custom of children going a-Thomassing, that is visiting houses on this day and asking for Thomas’s…
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Guisborough at night
A walk up to Highcliff Nab, looking down on a twinkling Guisborough. A sign of the season, lines of deep blue, the most disagreeable colour for Christmas lights, decorating eaves of houses. Top left, a row of red lights: the wind farm off Redcar, flickering as the blades rotate. A few ships out in the…
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Dibble Bridge
Spanning the Esk, a mile west of Castleton is the 18th century Dibble Bridge. Built of local sandstone, the bridge has been designated a Grade II listing “building” by Historic England. The name, however, indicates a much older crossing of the river for the etymologists tell us the name has Old Engilsh roots. Deop means…
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Cattersty Sands
A sight familiar to walkers on the Cleveland Way which uses the sand for a short while before climbing Cattersty Cliff on its way to Saltburn. I managed to grab this photo before the winter rain set in. Bounded by Jackdaw Crag at its far end and the old jetty and slag cliffs created in…
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Clumber Park Church
I rarely do churches, or indeed buildings of any kind, unless they are in ruins, but I’ve long been familar with the distinctive Church of Mary the Virgin at Clumber Park, a National Trust property forming part of the Dukeries in Nottinghamshire. It’s not that I’ve ever been inside but the unique imposing architecture of…
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Nanny Meyer’s Incline
I saw the name on the map and I just knew I had to see. I had a few hours to kill in Durham so decided to drive up to the moors around the head of the Derwent Valley. The moorland around is bleak and lonely with just a scattering of farmsteads. So who was…
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The Cheese Stone
The Cheese Stone is a group of sandstone boulders on the ridge between Grain Beck and Black Beck, two tributaries of Baysdale Beck. One must be the Cheese Stone but which it is, is open to debate. There are at least two contenders. The stones do add some interest on an otherwise featureless moorland that…
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Belman Bank Quarry
Recent tree felling in Guisborough Woods, ok maybe not that recent, might be a couple of years now, have exposed the outline of the large alum quarry at Belman Bank south of Guisborough. For many years any evidence of the quarry has been lost under the canopy of commercial forestry. A couple of weeks ago…
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12th December – a special day
For Herr and Fru Munch who would, in 1863, have been celebrating the birth of their first son, Edvard, who would in his time become Norway’s most famous painter; for Frank ‘old blue eyes’ Sinatra, who, in 1992, would have been celebrating his 77th birthday; and for Princess Anne who, on the same day, would…