Month: March 2018
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Slapewath Viaduct
It is not very often that this view is so clear. During the summer months, when the tree canopy and undergrowth is thick, the viaduct is almost hidden from the A171. Even today I have only managed to get six out of its eight arches in. The viaduct carried the Cleveland Railway, which was built…
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The vernal equinox
Today is the vernal or spring equinox, the astronomical start of spring when the length of day and night are equal. The word equinox, in fact, comes from the Latin meaning equal night. Astronomically, the equinox occurs when the sun crosses the celestial equator, an imaginary line in the sky above the Earth’s equator, which…
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The Postman’s Path into Baysdale
Taken from the old postman’s path, part of the route walked daily by the Kildale postman, which, according to Cedric Anthony’s book Glimpses of Kildale History, was the longest round in the country. For many years Derrick Dale was the postman. He lived in a cottage near the railway station. Originally mail was sorted at…
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Grýlukerti
An exploration of the rocks of Cook’s Crags on Easby Moor. And lots of icicles in the overhangs. The Icelandic word for icicle is grýlukerti which literally translates as Grýla’s candle. Grýla was an ogress who lived a cave in the mountains with her thirteen boys. At Christmas, she would come down to the villages…
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Beannachtaí na Féile Pádraig ort
St Patrick’s Day and a reminder needed that spring is on its way. The average date for the first swallow being spotted off the southern coast is 29th March. In the North-East, it will probably be a couple of weeks later. So in 3 weeks time, we could be seeing our first swallows arriving after…
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Cromford and High Peak Railway
Stopped off in the Derwent Valley, a Unesco World Heritage site on account of its 18th/19th-century cotton mills considered to be the birth of the large-scale factory production. It was where Richard Arkwright introduced the latest technology at the time for spinning cotton. But ignoring the mills I headed up the 1 in 9 Sheep…
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Tissington Spires
Dramatic limestone formation in the gorge of the River Dove in Derbyshire. Open Space Web-Map builder Code
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Thor’s Cave
The abode of the god of thunder, or maybe just a corruption of the word “tor” meaning hill. Evidence has been found that man’s earliest ancestors were here well before the last ice age, over 50,000 years ago. Bones, human as well as animal bones, long extinct bear, giant deer, wooly rhinoceros and lion have…
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Peacock
Almost had peacock for dinner. This fine bird wandered nonchalantly within the range of the dog. It would have been a feast fit for a king, peacocks featured regularly of a medieval king’s table. More for display though. Peacocks are native of the Indian sub-continent but were familiar to the ancient Greeks who considered them…
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Viator’s Bridge and the River Dove
The White Peak is the name given to the southern half of the Peak District, because of its predominate limestone geology and also by comparison with the millstone grit northern half of the Dark Peak. During the last ice age, deep running north-south gorges were cut in the limestone plateau by the runoff of glacial…