Tag: dale
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On this day in 1933
“It was icy cold in Munich on New Year’s Day [1933]. Adolf Hitler was drinking coffee over breakfast at his luxurious apartment at 16 Prinzregentenplatz. The morning papers made gloomy reading about his political prospects in the coming year. A critical article in the social democratic newspaper Vorwärts headlined ‘Hitler’s Rise and Fall’ suggested the…
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Pancake Day
On my way to Northallerton to get jabbed, so popped over into Cod Beck on the way. This is a view of Scarth Nick and Sheep Wash from Priest’s Spa Quarry on Hither Moor. And it’s Pancake Day too, a day when many traditions have been lost to history. Shrove Tuesday, the day before the…
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Rivelingdale from Potters Ridge
The image belies the buffeting I was getting by the bitter wind. I was on Potters Ridge, a small 24m high prominence of Guisborough Moor. Highcliff Nab is at the north-western end, and views of Sleddale and Rivelingdale on the southern, the ridge bisected by the forestry boundary fence. I am currently reading ‘Sapiens’ by…
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Lonsdale
Sylvia Plath tragically ended her life on this day in 1963. She was a 30 year old American poet, coping on her own in a house in London with two tiny children by the future Poet Laureate, Ted Hughes who had left her the previous year. She’d had some success as a poet, the Observer…
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A dismal day
I don’t usually moan about the weather. Just accept it as it comes. But today is indeed a dismal day. At least the Ancient Egyptian astrologers thought so. They calculated certain days of the year to be unlucky or evil, and today, 4th February, was one of them. There were 24 of them altogether, two…
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A match and a hatch in a Yorkshire village
Capt. Cook’s Monument was busy, busy this morning. The early sunshine brought out the crowds. But while everyone headed as far as the monument, a hundred metres or so south-east, Cook’s Crags above Kildale was deserted. A favourite viewpoint of mine. And now, still in the festive mood, a complete rambling diversion. A quiz question,…
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Just another dreich day
This is descending into Raisdale from the col with Scugdale. Just beyond the tree, the track becomes a well-defined holloway called Mill Lane. It used to be a ‘green lane’ and popular with off-road motorcyclists and motorists and was suffering from horrendous erosion. But, since downgraded to a Public Bridleway, it has recovered nicely, although…
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Now that’s what I call a green lane …
… but not what most folks usually associate with the term, an off-road route for motorbikes and 4wd vehicles. Actually, the term ‘green lane’ has no legal significance. An unsurfaced route for vehicles would be a ‘byway open to all traffic’ or a BOAT. This is, in fact, a Public Bridleway providing access rights for…
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Otter Hills, Westerdale
I never know what’s the proper name for this dale. It’s the dale of Tower Beck which becomes Whyett Beck before its confluence with the River Esk which takes the name Westerdale up to the river’s source in the Esklets. Yet if you follow Tower Beck upstream to its source just below Young Ralph Cross…
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View from Solomon’s Temple to Oak Dale
It would have been a fine view that greeted Matthew Walker when he emerged each morning from his farm at Solomon’s Temple. His eyes might follow Slape Stones Beck down to its confluence with Oak Dale. The farmstead stood on the Hambleton Drove Road at an eminence at the top of Stony Bank. A ruin…