Month: December 2018
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Today is St. Thomas’s Day
Or is it? The great god Wikipedia says is 21st December, tomorrow. But Rev. J. C. Atkinson in his 1858 tome “Forty Years in a Moorland Parish” writes that it is the 20th December. I am more inclined to believe the Reverend. An old-fashioned book sitting on my shelf has more authenticity. Whatever the day…
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When the gorse is out of bloom, kissing’s out of fashion
So you can breathe a sigh of relief. Of course, you can find the yellow flowers of the thorny gorse shrub all year round thriving on poor acidic soils. It is an evergreen member of the pea family with small coconut-scented flowers which are edible and used in salads. They make a nice cup of…
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On a windswept Roseberry Common
Not many visitors climbing Roseberry today. There will be plenty of car parking down in Newton. On popular days parking is becoming very difficult. Folk are reluctant to use the National Park run carpark because of the cost preferring instead to park on the verges. There are proposals to introduce double yellow lines and an…
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Tocketts Ironstone Mine Ventilation Shaft
Hidden away on the steep wooded slopes of Tocketts Beck, a reminder of the Cleveland ironstone boom. A ventilation shaft with a tall, rather precarious looking chimney built to aid the updraft just above where a Public Footpath crosses the beck. The mine was a short-lived venture lasting for just nine years from 1880 although…
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Highcliff Gate
After last night’s passage of Storm Deidre, a benign sunny morning. Bit disappointing to find no snow but icy tracks made the going interesting. This is looking west along the watershed between the Tees and the Esk, across Highcliff Gate to Potter’s Ridge with Roseberry peeping over the skyline. Open Space Web-Map builder Code
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“By, yon’s a sooth-east, piner, aa’reet!”
To be honest the weather today hasn’t been the most conducive for the taking of photographs. A raw, bitter wind which does not take the trouble to go around you, but pierces right through to your very bones. No matter my layers of Polartec, gloves and a hat of the finest merino wool. ‘A lazy…
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The Folly
Strong morning sunshine on a stand of beech on a green hill. The stand is called “The Folly”, the hill is How Hill, a gravel mound left by the meltwater of a retreating glacier. At 166m above sea level, it is not a big hill but it is tempting to say it gave its name…
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Sunrise over Great Hograh Moor
Early morning trot up to Newton Moor. Somewhere the sun is shining but a bank of cloud blocks it. A few birches left after the felling of the forestry on Black Bank, skeletonised for the winter. The graceful birch, one of the first trees to colonise Britain after the glaciers retreated. The wood is hard…
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Where’s Arthur?
In July this year, for the first time since 2014, two hen harriers fledged from a nest in the Peak District. The two birds, one male and one female were both tagged by the RSPB. The male was given the name Arthur and his sister Octavia. Arthur hung around the Peak District for a few…
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Ghost sign, Castleton
I am fascinated by the faint traces of advertising signage can occasionally be seen on old established buildings. This one was painted and is on a sandstone cottage on Church Street, Castleton as it climbs up to the village centre. Too faint now to be readable though. I don’t suppose the parish council would agree…