Out & About …

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

Month: October 2022

  • For a week so Roseberry summit has been home to a handful of Snowflakes or Snow buntings

    For a week so Roseberry summit has been home to a handful of Snowflakes or Snow buntings

    A dreich day, “Roseberrye Toppinge weares a cappe“, so a photo from yesterday. For a week so Roseberry summit has been home to a handful of Snowflakes or Snow buntings, to use their more common name. Canny little birds which seem to find pleasure in teasing you — flying off a couple of yards or…

  • Since time immemorial, all who have lived within the shadow of Roseberry must must have had a sense of affection to Cleveland’s iconic “mountain”

    Since time immemorial, all who have lived within the shadow of Roseberry must must have had a sense of affection to Cleveland’s iconic “mountain”

    Thomas Kitchingman Staveley, Lord of the Manor of Newton, went as far as to name his daughter Roseberry. When Archibald Primrose was granted a peerage in Scotland in 1700, he chose the title of Viscount Rosebery, supposedly after “a hill near Archibald’s wife’s estates in Yorkshire“. He continued with the name when he was later…

  • A beautiful autumn day, clear and sunny, with light winds and a slight nip in the air

    A beautiful autumn day, clear and sunny, with light winds and a slight nip in the air

    I have had a couple of people say to me recently that “controlled” burning of the moors is now illegal. Well, that’s not quite right. According to Defra the new regulations introduced last year “will prevent the burning of any specified vegetation on areas of deep peat (over 40cm depth) on a Site of Special…

  • Ayton Weir

    Ayton Weir

    The cataractic centrepiece of ‘Waterfall Park‘ off the High Street in Great Ayton. The weir served two mills: Ayton Mill, situated south of the ‘Buck Inn’, and Low Mill, well downstream of Low Green, shared by a  common race which can still be traced today. Both these mills have existed since medieval times but in…

  • Roseberry Common ‘omega’ sign

    Roseberry Common ‘omega’ sign

    The oak leaf on an ‘omega’ shaped plaque has become the National Trust’s iconic sign since it was designed by Yorkshire artist Joseph Armitage (1880-1945) in 1935. “The oak leaves were chosen as being no less symbolic of England than the more usual lion, and more in keeping with the use of the emblem”. Omega…

  • Saw-pit, Middle Heads

    Saw-pit, Middle Heads

    One of the books on my bookshelf is “Life and Tradition on The Moorlands of North-East Yorkshire” by Marie Hartley and Joan Ingilby and contains an interesting photo of a saw-pit being used at Middle Heads in Farndale. I thought today I would have a go at finding it. I am a bit hesitant about…

  • You never know what the day will bring

    You never know what the day will bring

    It’s almost 50 years since I moved up to North Yorkshire from the Midlands and started my exploration of the North York Moors. I love going ‘off-piste’ and I thought I had explored every path, every sheep track, and every swidden on the Cleveland Hills. But today, on a very familiar patch of heather moor,…

  • John Scarth, a “well-to-do” Bransdale farmer

    John Scarth, a “well-to-do” Bransdale farmer

    A lovely view of St Nicholas Church appearing through a window in the autumnal canopy from a field near to Bransdale Mill where the National Trust are creating a wildflower meadow. The little church at Cockayne was built about 1800, so it would have been very familiar to John Scarth, a well-to-do farmer who was…

  • Sandwick

    Sandwick

    Another view from the weekend. Sandwick, a small hamlet on the shore of Ullswater. To the right the 1,271′ Hallin Fell, which Wainwright regards as “the motorists’ fell, for the sandals and slippers and polished shoes of the numerous car-owners who park their on the crest of the zig-zags on Sunday afternoons have smoothed to…

  • Martindale

    Martindale

    I’ve been off-grid in the Lakes for a few days, specifically in Martindale, perhaps the most secluded and certainly the least touristy of the dales. Martindale drains into Ullswater. To get there you have to follow the east of the Lake from Pooley Bridge to Howtown then negotiate The Hause, a steep little pass with…