Out & About …

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

Month: April 2022

  • Bloworth Crossing

    Bloworth Crossing

    Or Blawith, as I’ve seen it written. Or Blowith. Many names, but a well-known feature on several long-distance path over the moors. Where the Rosedale mineral railway crossed the ancient track along Rudland Rigg, a track which, in 1934. Alec E. F. Wright described as a “grass road” and “exhilarating”. In the 21st-century, the Rudland…

  • Commondale Bleach Mill

    Commondale Bleach Mill

    Another item on my bucket list ticked off. Commondale Beck is barely two miles long from its start at the meeting of Sleddale and Ravengill Becks to its confluence with the River Esk, although its meanderings might push it over this distance. About 175 metres from Commondale Railway Station on the west Guisborough parish side…

  • Lenten Lilies by the Leven

    Lenten Lilies by the Leven

    Lenten Lily is a Yorkshire name for the daffodil, the wild English variety, although I guess these are a cultivated variety. Daffs are poisonous, nevertheless they have been used throughout the centuries for medicinal purposes particularly as a cure for cancer. Hippocrates himself recommended a pessary prepared from daffodils for tumours of the womb. In…

  • In search of three wells

    In search of three wells

    There are many named features of the old Ordnance Survey maps which names no longer appear on the modern versions. I feel they must have been significant for the local farmers, gamekeepers and land agents to mention them when those early surveyors came knocking. I decided to check out three wells today on Scarth Wood…

  • Live Moor promontory fort

    Live Moor promontory fort

    A small Bronze Age fort on the north-west corner of Live Moor, more often called Knolls End. Within spitting distance of the Cleveland Way and Coast to Coast footpaths but no Information Boards adorn the site. It was only “discovered” in 1979 so there have been no excavations done. But … … there are sure…

  • In search of Regency Graffiti

    In search of Regency Graffiti

    I came across a letter the other day in the Yorkshire Gazette dated 1st December 1821. There are some words which were frustratingly unreadable because of the binding — I’ve included these as [?]: Sir, — As your columns are often [with] classical notices, it cannot be doubted that [you will] readily admit the following…

  • Battersby

    Battersby

    Battersby is a township of the parish of Ingleby Greenhow. It’s recorded as ‘Badresbi‘ in the Domesday Survey with eight households being noted as liable for tax in 1301.. The pond in the foreground is the obvious visible evidence of tile and brick works which is indicated on the 1853 Ordnance Survey map. Battersby was once…

  • Commondale from Kempswithin

    Commondale from Kempswithin

    Kempswithin is a large expanse of heather moorland bound on the north by the Esk Valley railway and containing no Rights of Way; this latter fact reinforced by the abundance of signs that have been placed by the Kildale Estates advising “No Dogs | No Bikes | This is not a footpath or bridleway“. Whilst…

  • A shower on t’moors

    A shower on t’moors

    Every poet since Chaucer has waxed lyrically about April showers: Whan that Aprill, with his shoures soote The droghte of March hath perced to the roote And bathed every veyne in swich licour, Of which vertu engendred is the flour; and foretold of flowery times for May. But I don’t think many had in mind a blizzard.