Out & About …

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

Month: July 2020

  • Rounton Grange

    Rounton Grange

    On me bike for a low-level ride over the quiet roads west of the A19. The bottom bracket is wobbly so I wanted to avoid any big climbs. Bikes are great when they work, but not as simple as running. I took a detour to see if I could find any remains of Rounton Grange,…

  • Masks

    Masks

    Sunshine, blue skies, a lovely morning to be out on the moors. No fear of losing your way in the fog today. No fear of being maskered. To ‘masker’ is a Yorkshire term meaning to render giddy, senseless, or bewildered as when lost in a blizzard, fog, or darkness. Masks are due to become very…

  • ‘A Wild Year’

    ‘A Wild Year’

    Did you watch ‘A Wild Year‘ on BBC2 on Friday evening, featuring the North York Moors? It’ll be available on iPlayer for a while. I was left feeling disappointed. The filming was superb of course, slow motion and time lapsed, the usual BBC quality, but when it came to the inevitable section on grouse management,…

  • Lowcross Swangs

    Lowcross Swangs

    A pastoral scene looking across Lowcross Swangs to Barnabyside of Eston Moor. A ‘swang‘ is a Yorkshire term for a low-lying piece of grassland that is liable to flooding. To the left of the photo, the drainage is west to the River Tame and eventually the Tees; to the right, the flow is east into…

  • The Matthew Paris map

    The Matthew Paris map

    How do you like your maps? Do you treat them with reverence, still in their pristine covers and neatly filed numerically? Or are they coverless, coming apart at the seams through years of use and being folded in origami shapes to cram into a map case? The thing we all probably have in common is…

  • St. Swithin’s Day

    St. Swithin’s Day

    A damp run on the moors this morning. Light rain, hardly wetting the paving slabs on Coate Moor. Would it though, be enough to satisfy St. Swithin, who according to the legend, if it rained today (15th July), it will be the start of forty days of rain. He was bishop of Winchester Cathedral and…

  • Port Mulgrave

    Port Mulgrave

    Every time I go to Port Mulgrave, it still feels very much the same, yet much has changed. The winter storms have eroded the old jetty. The harbour has become more silted, the fishermen’s huts more elaborate. Some now are clearly contenders for Grand Designs. Landslips have caused the steep paths down the cliff to…

  • Armouth Wath

    Armouth Wath

    The North York Moors is not renown for its coalfields, but in the late 18th-century, coal was being mined here but on a much smaller scale than the deeper coalfields in other parts of the country. ‘Moor Coal’ seams are thin, usually between 15 and 55 cm. thick and generally occur in three bands, the…

  • The Red Poppy

    The Red Poppy

    Look, how the Poppies flaunt their red-red flags O’er all yon cornfield,—beauty out of place! So when the angel Peace would bless our race, The demon War, in horrid triumph, drags His gore-stain’d chariot; drums and trumpets sound To nerve the soldier’s arm to burn and slay, And showy banners are unfurl’d alway,— All fitter…

  • The Leven at Little Ayton

    The Leven at Little Ayton

    A tranquil feel to the River Leven this morning down by Holme’s Bridge. And warm too. I was reminded of the halcyon days of early lockdown. The Leven, named after the Celtic water-nymph, ‘Leuan‘. A surprising number of rivers have names deriving from Celtic; surviving in spite of the influence of the Saxons and Scandinavians,…