Tag: medieval
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Arrow Stones
Not a day for photography on the moors. So a quick visit to the local church. All Saints Church, Great Ayton. The present building dates from the 12th-century but an an Anglo Saxon church in the Domesday Book. One curiosity is a series of groves incised on a quoin (cornerstone) of the gable to the…
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In Baysdale Beck
Two stoops or gateposts mark a long-lost crossing of Baysdale Beck about 275 metres upstream of the modern-day ford at Hob Hole. The width between the post suggests a passage on foot and for pack horses only. “Ploughman“, writing in 1908, observed that “the supports of an ancient bridge is still preserved, by the interweaving…
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“T’ biggest hill in all Yorkshur”
It is generally accepted that the now populous district of the North Riding which we call Cleveland is bounded on its southern extremity by the Cleveland Hills. This is not so. Historically, the district of Cleveland comprises the archdeaconry of that name, which extends considerably farther south, as far as Pickering, retaining in part the…
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Crayaldstane
A dreary damp day with hardly no visibility so a fall back to that ubiquitous feature of the moors: standing stones. Man has erected stones upright for many reasons: to delineate a boundary, as a waymarker, a religious symbol or a monument. At Oakdale Head, on the parochial boundary between Hawnby and Nether Silton, you…
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Jackson’s Bank
A cold morning with the puddles covering by a skimpy layer of brittle ice, the first of the winter. This is looking down on Greenhow Bottom from the top of Jackson’s Bank. I would love to find out who Jackson was. He is elusive but certainly lived before the first Ordnance Survey was published in 1857.…
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Neil’s Howe
It was pleasing to see the Nelson Stone restored to its correct postion. Or should I say the 19th-century boundary stone. One of the last times I was here, in 2017, it had vanished. I learnt later it had unceremoniously been dumped in a nearby pond. That act of vandalism must have taken some doing.…
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Concerning the ghost of a man of Ayton in Cleveland
I’ve been saving this little story up hoping to come across a suitable image to accompany it. It came back to me today, and finding inspiration, I have given up waiting. But first, the featured image is, of course, of Roseberry Topping, “t’ biggest hill i’ all Yorkshur” that overlooks the village of Great Ayton.…
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A day which started with me looking for a Medieval Cross and ended up uncovering a gruesome Victorian murder
Had a wander around Roppa Moor, north of Helmsley. The cross turned out to be a little disappointing, just the recessed base and a piece of the shaft. This is actually the northernmost of the remains of two wayside crosses (360m apart) that located alongside the supposed medieval ‘pæth‘ that ran south from the junction…
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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…
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Bransdale Mill
Another view of the rear of Bransdale Mill but from a different viewpoint standing on the wall of the mill-race. The first record of a mill in Bransdale is a late 13th century will, when the Mill was included in the estate of the Lady de Stuteville, who left her estate to her son Baldwin…