Month: January 2020
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Cleared semi-open woodland of the slope of Roseberry
At peak times the summit of Roseberry Topping can get very crowded. Weekends especially. One of my regular routes avoiding the summit is to hug the boundary of the Open Access around the southern flank from Roseberry Ironstone Mine to the Summerhouse. It passed through a strip of semi-open woodland of mature hawthorn contouring around […]
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Grasmere from Grey Crag
In 1799 William and Dorothy Wordsworth moved to Dove Cottage, Grasmere. While both siblings composed poetry Dorothy also kept a journal documenting their life in the vale. In one entry in her journal, she writes: “… our dear Grasmere, making a little round lake of nature’s own, with never a house, never a green field, […]
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On the climb up Grisedale Pike
A smattering of snow, and just about to climb into the cloud. Looking back towards Barrow and Derwentwater. Open Space Web-Map builder Code
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Newlands Valley
It seems appropriate that, on what would have been Alfred Wainwright’s 113th birthday, to post a photo of a Wainwright, one of those 214 Lakeland fells listed in the seven volumes of his Pictorial Guide to the Lakeland Fells. Well, here we have a pair of them, Catbells and Maiden Moor. Grumpy, stubborn, reclusive and […]
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Rampike, Bridestones Moor
A rampike is the skeletal remains of a dead tree, in this case, a triple trunked birch standing alone on a windswept moor. The word comes from Canada but probably originated back in England in the 16th-century. It is thought the “ram” element means raven, i.e. as a perch favoured by these birds. It was […]
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Paddock, Gribdale
I will be the first to admit that I don’t know much about horses. But I do feel sorry for this herd of horses at Gribdale. There must be close to a dozen of them in a smallish muddy field with very little grass. For sure, hay or other feed is obviously being provided but […]
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Runswick Bay
Regarded as one of the quaintest of all the fishing villages of the Yorkshire coast but sadly not much fishing goes on from here now. I suspect there are not many cottages which have year-long residents. In the middle of the 19th-century, Runswick had 18 boats fishing for the herring and another 20 on the […]
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Cotoneaster, Roseberry Common
The lull before Storm Brendon. Sporadic sunshine and a meander around Roseberry Common. This small tree full of brightly coloured red berries stood out amongst the muted browns and greens of the winter foliage. Berries bigger and redder than haws, not a rowan. Whereas birds have been almost stripped the neighbouring rowans and hawthorns bare […]
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The National Trust, 125 years old today
On this day in 1895 three Victorian philanthropists, Miss Octavia Hill, Sir Robert Hunter and Canon Hardwicke Rawnsley met and founded the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty. Octavia Hill had campaigned about the poor availability of open spaces for poor people and developments on suburban woodlands. She had helped to […]
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Does Biodiversity Matter?
‘A moor that is well managed for grouse shooting is likely to have a higher biodiversity than an unmanaged moor.’ I came across this quote and the title on an activity sheet issued by the North York Moors National Park Education Service in conjunction with the Dawnay Estates and intended, I guess, for secondary school […]