Month: March 2021
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Here be a dragon
“First Swainby meets the eye, next Whorlton near, Its ancient castle mouldering in a heap : A little distant stands a mount rotund, The form of Roseberry, but lower much: Upon its summit swords and divers arms Were found, dug up, supposed a battery there To batter down the castle built below.” PIERSON’S Roseberry. Whorl…
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Skinningrove
When ‘J.G.’ passed through Skinningrove bay in 1866 on his way from Saltburn to Whitby, the village must have looked very different. The stone built houses were set back from the shore, to give some shelter from the North Sea; the rows of terraced cottages had still to be built. To visualise it best, it’s…
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Cringle Crag
Last night I found a book I had forgotten I had, tucked behind the book shelves. Tom Burns Scott has written extensively about the North York Moors. In this book, he wrote of an engraving in an old quarry face on Cringle Moor that records “a change of ownership of the Dromonby estate in 1732”.…
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The Right to Roam
I’ve had my knuckles rapped. I recently received this email Hello, It’s been brought to my attention by a friend that you are publicising The Buckingham Stone and encouraging people to visit it and giving them a Geographic location for it. Are you aware that the Buckingham Stone is on private land and not on…
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Tinghoudale
Visiting wetlands is a rarity for me and has been almost non-existent since this pandemic started. I’ve been keeping an eye then on this little marshy nature reserve in the small valley between the Bousdale ridge and Grove Hill. The valley went by the Old Scandinavian name of Tinghoudale or ‘the valley beside the mound…
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Devil’s Matchsticks
One of the lesser known residents of Great Ayton was William Mudd (1829–1879) who the head gardener for Thomas Richardson, a retired banker and one of the village’s most influential and generous benefactors. Mudd came under the influence of George Dixon, a fellow Quaker and superintendent of the North of England Agricultural School, the predecessor…
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“Murder by a Farmer in the North-Riding” (Part 3)
It is probably a bit of a stretch to say that when Mr. Forth carved his name on this sandstone crag at the top of Roseberry Topping, he had read the report the trial of Bradshaw Brougham Graham four years earlier in the Leeds Mercury. He may have not even been aware of it, but…
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“Murder by a Farmer in the North-Riding” (Part 2)
If you have not read the first part of this history then it might make more sense if you did. We left Bradshaw Graham languishing in gaol charged with the wilful murder of William Johnson on the night of 19th October 1863. Perhaps he was reflecting on his life so far. Perhaps he was thinking of…
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“Murder by a Farmer in the North-Riding” (Part 1)
So ran the headlines on the morning of Saturday, 24 October, 1863 in provincial newspapers throughout the country. From Guernsey to Stornaway. Reports were syndicated in those days, often repeating verbatim the same wording. It was a report that I had come across when researching the arsonist vicar post of two days ago. But the…
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Bousdale Brickworks
With cloud shrouding the moorland tops, I kept low and, taking advantage of the winter vegetation die back, had a little potter around the old brickworks at Bousdale, now part of a fitness course for the Pinchinthorp Visitor Centre. A ‘Brick Field’ is shown on the 1856 Ordnance Survey map (surveyed 1853). It is thought…