Out & About …

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

  • Johnny Longstaff

    Johnny Longstaff

    This photo of Cliff Rigg quarry looks along the whinstone ridge of the Cleveland Dyke towards Stockton-on-Tees where it crosses the Tees at Preston. I’ve posted about the Dyke many times before, so today I will write about a Stocktonian โ€” Johnny Longstaff, who on this day in 1938 was shot and seriously wounded while…

  • The Bronze Age funerary landscape of Great Ayton Moor

    The Bronze Age funerary landscape of Great Ayton Moor

    Great Ayton Moor is well known for its wealth of prehistoric monuments, including a chambered cairn, a large cairnfield and an Iron Age enclosure. The most photogenic feature must be the chambered cairn which I’ve posted about before here, but today was submerged by bracken. In the photo this bracken covered chambered cairn is top…

  • Jenny Bradley stone

    Jenny Bradley stone

    My mind was piqued by the following sentence in a 1906 article in the Whitby Gazette by that prolific writer on all North Yorkshire matters, John Fairfax-Blakeborough (1883-1976): A mile or so from the Nab is to be seen, by the side of the road, a stone which, to the traveller unversed in local legend,…

  • The Cheese Stones’ rock fonts

    The Cheese Stones’ rock fonts

    Elgee suggests the name Cheese Stones , “probably” originates because the rock was used in local cheese presses. Now that may be the case but I do not understand why rock from this particular outcrop should be used for pressing cheeses. In the same article, appearing in the Northern Weekly Gazette in 1902, the future…

  • Crosscliff Beck

    Crosscliff Beck

    Volunteering with the National Trust at the furthest corner of what must be their remotest property. The task today was to repair the post and wire fencing along their boundary with Newgate Foot farm and to remove any overhanging branches from the alder and willow tress which align the beck. The boundary, actually along the…

  • River Leven at Kildale

    River Leven at Kildale

    In spite of yesterday’s rain the River Leven looks very tranquil. Unlike the state it would have been on the 21st July, 1840, when heavy rain caused the Kildale fish pond to burst causing flooding downstream and washing away Kildale Mill and two stone bridges.

  • “With great power comes great responsibility”

    “With great power comes great responsibility”

    So said Spiderman. It’s a pity those who manufactured, sold, or brought this balloon didn’t show any responsibility. I’m not sure what it’s made of โ€” some sort of petrochemical material no doubt. ‘Mylar‘ is one brand make for these helium-filled balloons. There are many reported cases of animals dying from ingesting discarded balloons, (here’s…

  • Once again woke up to a duvet smothering Cleveland …

    Once again woke up to a duvet smothering Cleveland …

    … but pleasing to see it overflowing into a cloudless Bilsdale. Taken from the 390m spot height half way along the Cold Moor ridge. White Hill, aka Hasty Bank, on the far side of the mist flowing over Garfit Gap โ€” named after the farm of the south side of the hill and documented as…

  • Ground hugging mist slowly dissipating as the day warms

    Ground hugging mist slowly dissipating as the day warms

    Roseberry was busy this morning. Along with the usual Sunday climbers, there was an abseil down the rock face going on and runners in the ‘Hanging Stone Leap‘ race. It was the 31st running of the event, although the inaugural race was run in 1988. So there’s been a bit of a gap. Today’s race…

  • A longing look at a sea fret

    A longing look at a sea fret

    Stanghow Moor, looking back towards Low Moor, amputated by the A170. A distant bank of cloud suggests a sea fret. But first, Live Moor, east of Birk Brow, a sad patch of heather moorland, scarred by generations of motorcyclists, and, in the 17th-century, by poor Jenny Frisk when she was ducked in a witch trial.…

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