Out & About …

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

Month: November 2022

  • Volunteering with the National Trust in Bransdale

    Volunteering with the National Trust in Bransdale

    Barker Plantation is a reasonably sized larch plantation covering Scot Ridge, the hill between Hodge Beck and Shaw Beck. The plantation is due to be felled, and to do this, a contractor will be brought in, but the amongst the conifers there are many birch, oaks and Scots Pine which the Trust want to retain…

  • Super autumnal lighting before what seems like an impending storm

    Super autumnal lighting before what seems like an impending storm

    But although it turned dark and winding with a bit of a drizzle I managed to get back to the car dry. I am on Cringle Moor, or Cringley Moor as it used to be called. This was pronounced in the vernacular ‘Creenay‘, which I guess why it was often written as Cranimoor. According to…

  • The colourful life of Lord Ernest Vane Tempest

    The colourful life of Lord Ernest Vane Tempest

    In spite of occupying the prime spot overlooking Saltburn Sands, Britannia Terrace is architectually dominated by Henry Pease’s Zetland Hotel, described in 1867 as “one of the most magnificent and commodious Marine Edifices in the Kingdom,” commanding “a splendid Prospect of the Sea and the finest Mountain Scenery in England“. I love it when I…

  • Today is Tharcake Monday

    Today is Tharcake Monday

    In the Northern counties, the first Monday after Halloween is Tharcake Monday. Lancashire seems to have claimed the monopoly for this cake which originally made of unfermented dough — chiefly meals of rye, barley and pea, mixed with milk or water— rolled very thin, and baked hard in the oven. But the tradition is also…

  • Basking in the morning sun but to the south-east a cloud bank hangs over Commondale Moor

    Basking in the morning sun but to the south-east a cloud bank hangs over Commondale Moor

    Or is it a mist bank? I suppose a walker on Commondale Moor will think he’s in mist or fog or if he’s a local of more mature years, a ‘roke‘. There is no difference really. Both are created when the air becomes saturated and water vapour condenses to form droplets that hang in the…

  • Cheshire Stone

    Cheshire Stone

    On the lip of Urra Moor, overlooking the village of Urra. I wonder what came first: the moor or the village? It is said the name might derive from the Norse ‘haugr‘ meaning a hill. Or it could from the Old English word for dirty — ‘horheht‘/’horhig‘/’horuweg‘ — apparently Try speaking the words without pronouncing…

  • Dry hedging in Newton Wood, two years on

    Dry hedging in Newton Wood, two years on

    Volunteering with the National Trust in Newton Wood. Two years on the dry hedges built to allow the regrowth of the woodland floor seemed to have done their job, but were looking tied. So the task today was to rejuvenate the hedges, and extend then to discourage visitors from using the erosion gulley. Dry (or…

  • Peat Law

    Peat Law

    Another photo from the last few days in the Scottish Borders. At 464m asl., the hill on the right is known as ‘Three Brethren‘ after the three 16th-century cairns on its summit. It stands on an old drove road once used by  cattle but now popular with walkers and mountain bikers. The cairns were each…

  • It’s amazing what you come across in a Scottish forest

    It’s amazing what you come across in a Scottish forest

    In 2012, a full-size football pitch was created in a plantation of spruce near the Scottish border town of Selkirk. Trees were felled and the timber used to make the goal posts, crowd barriers, benches, and changing rooms. The pitch had been carefully tendered. For just one day, four teams of amateur players — two…