Out & About …

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

Category: Great Ayton Moor

  • A new sign’s appeared

    A new sign’s appeared

    No Dogs No Bikes This is not a Footpath/Bridleway There is an increase in these signs across the moors. This one has been placed in the last fortnight or so right across a well-used path on Great Ayton Moor leading to Lonsdale Quarry. A blatant attempt by the landowners to intimidate the public to keep…

  • Boundary Stone, Great Ayton Moor

    Boundary Stone, Great Ayton Moor

    The sun was shining on Great Ayton Moor this morning through a skylight in the cloud. North, south, east and west, there were banks of broody grey cloud. It looked like rain was falling to the north. I am at the highest point, 318 metres above sea level. A 19th-century boundary stone tops the ‘summit’.…

  • The keepers have been at it again.

    The keepers have been at it again.

    This is somewhere near to the WW2 bunker on Great Ayton Moor. The smoke was heading straight towards Guisborough. Now it’s been a year since the Government committed to banning rotational burning on peatlands. However, nothing has happened. This is perhaps not surprising since it has had the coronavirus to deal with, but there is…

  • Dub, Great Ayton Moor

    Dub, Great Ayton Moor

    A ‘dub‘ is a Northern word for a patch of water, which could be anything from a puddle on a path or road to a pool in a river, deep enough for swimming or a favoured fishing mark. The earliest attestation is in a perambulation of the liberty of Ripon in 1481. Sometimes a stream…

  • Where is the purple haze?

    Where is the purple haze?

    The odd sprig of ling or heather can be found on the moors, amongst the muddy brown remnants of the winter colouring. Why isn’t the heather at its finest? Surely it should be by now, this first week of August. I had a search of my back archives to illustrate the state of the heather…

  • Masks

    Masks

    Sunshine, blue skies, a lovely morning to be out on the moors. No fear of losing your way in the fog today. No fear of being maskered. To ‘masker’ is a Yorkshire term meaning to render giddy, senseless, or bewildered as when lost in a blizzard, fog, or darkness. Masks are due to become very…

  • What’s the difference between a stoat and a weasel?

    What’s the difference between a stoat and a weasel?

    Traditionally there has always been widespread killing of both types of mustelids by gamekeepers. ‘Vermin’ control, they call it. On the moors and open countryside, it is generally stoats, weasels preferring woods and hedgerows. But there is considerable overlap in their ranges. The traps used are spring traps, of which the best-known is the Fenn…

  • Robert Chaloner

    Robert Chaloner

    A gentle breeze this morning on Great Ayton Moor leading to a slight increase in visibility. In the absence of a stunning view, I had to resort to another of the many boundary stones that scatter the moors. This one is inscribed ‘R C’ so it is likely to refer to Robert Chaloner, but is…

  • Boundary Stone, Great Ayton Moor

    Boundary Stone, Great Ayton Moor

    A roughly dressed boundary stone, probably limestone, and inscribed β€œRY 1752”. This probably stands for Ralph Yoward who became Lord of the Manor of Hutton following the death of his father in 1751. When Henry VIII dissolved Gisborough Priory in 1539, it was the fourth richest religious house in Yorkshire. The priory land at Hutton…

  • One misty moisty morning when cloudy was the weather

    One misty moisty morning when cloudy was the weather

    I didn’t meet “an old man a-clothed all in leather” this morning. In fact, there were not many folks around at all. Plenty of evidence of money spiders (Liniphiidae) activities. I think these are the webs of the money spider, normally un-noticed until they capture the morning mist. In case you are wondering the title…