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Robin’s pincushion
Every so often nature springs a surprise. This dog rose in Cliff Ridge Wood appears to have grown some pretty little red “flowers”. These are in fact galls, a reaction in the plant tissue to the laying of eggs in the leaf buds by a gall wasp, Diplolepis rosae. The wasp lays up to 60…
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Dovedale
A stream meanders through the meadows of this lovely steep-sided valley, a National Trust property on the edge of Dalby Forest. Higher up the dale becomes narrower and is known as Dovedale Griff, formed by glacial melt-water from ice fields at the end of the last ice age. When the climate warmed and the permanent…
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Highcliff Gate
It’s Yorkshire Day, a day when social media is full of memes saying “eeh by gum” and “ey up”. It seems appropriate then to have a photo of Yorkshire. A not too difficult a task and could be the within the old county of Yorkshire of course. This is Highcliff Gate, the low point between…
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Ingleby Manor Ironstone Mine
Armed with a six-digit grid reference I have twice tried to locate the remains of the Ingleby Manor Ironstone Mine, and twice failed. The grid reference I obtained from the Catalogue of Cleveland Ironstone Mines by Peter Tuffs, the guru of local industrial archaeology. It was with trepidation then to discover it was to be…
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Yarm Castle
There is documentary evidence that Yarm did indeed once have a castle. There was a gift of land to the hospital of St. Nicholas, juxta castellarium. A castellarium is the precinct or jurisdiction of a castle and juxta or iuxta is Latin for alongside. The hospital itself was founded by the wealthy and powerful de…
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Blue Lake
Not really a lake and definitely not blue, more of a mucky brown. It is, of course, a small dam and the blue refers to the blue colour it was said to be because of the salts of alum that leached into the water. It was built in 1880 by Sir Joseph Whitwell Pease to…
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Oakdale
A weathered sign: “Oakdale Reservoir a source of Yorkshire Water” but now decommissioned and transformed into a wildlife lake, passed by The Cleveland Way. And a memory evoking view. Open Space Web-Map builder Code
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The Wainstones
Making the most of a break in the lightning and storms, a quick trip up to the Wainstones. Still very humid though. Nice to see the ling beginning to bloom. Open Space Web-Map builder Code
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Ann Feversham Memorial
I have had a whinge about vernacular memorials many times before. The proliferation of benches on Roseberry, words carved into the rock face on Easby Moor and bunches of flowers wrapped in cellophane which remains long after the flowers have died. On the nose of Cockayne Ridge overlooking Bransdale is another memorial. A non-descript square…
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Carr Ridge
A lovely summer’s evening. Nicely cooling off. On Carr Ridge on Urra Moor. The Public Bridleway down Jackson’s Bank passes between a pair of flat stones, an obvious landmark, which surprisingly are un-named. roseberry is somewhere on the horizon. Open Space Web-Map builder Code
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