Category: North Yorkshire
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Bloody Meadow
A few miles south of Tadcaster to look around the site of the Battle of Towton, a defining battle in the War of the Roses and perhaps the most barbaric ever fought on English soil. The River Cock had overflowed its banks following Storm Dennis flooding the Bloody Meadow, where many fleeing Lancastrian soldiers were…
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Runswick Bay
Regarded as one of the quaintest of all the fishing villages of the Yorkshire coast but sadly not much fishing goes on from here now. I suspect there are not many cottages which have year-long residents. In the middle of the 19th-century, Runswick had 18 boats fishing for the herring and another 20 on the…
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Ingleby Arncliffe
From Beacon Scar looking down on the Vale of Mowbray and the twin villages of Ingleby Arncliffe and Ingleby Cross, now merged into one. Both are mentioned in the Domesday Book although the names imply earlier settlements. Ingleby is simply the village of the Angles whereas Arncliffe is a mixture of Old English and Old…
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Quaker Graveyard, Great Ayton
Quakerism began to attract support in the North York Moors soon after its emergence after the Civil war in the mid-17th-century. Almost every dale would have its populace often sizeable and with their industrious philosophy, many soon became highly successful farmers. There is a record of George Fox, the founder of Quakerism, visiting Danby Dale.…
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River Leven and the Hinmers Congregational Chapel
A few tentative steps down the village. With a heightened sense of awareness of, while not major obstacles, they are nevertheless unwelcome. Slippy rotting leaves, inconsiderate parking blocking half the pavement, dog crap, indeed the mere anxiety of a frisky dog even if on a lead. “He won’t hurt you”. A realisation of the problems…
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Why do sheep always face the same way?
It was almost a failure to post today. I have been at the National Trust property of Thompson’s Rigg near Dalby building leaky dams and sheep gates across Crosscliffe Beck. Sheep gates to prevent sheep from passing under the new fence where it crosses the beck and leaky dams to slow down the water flow…
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River Leven, Little Ayton
“Sweet vale of Leven! how calm is thy stream, Gliding onwards in beauty like hour’s youngest dream.” Attributed to John Walker Ord by J. Fairfax-Blakeborough in Great Ayton, Stokesley & District, past and present, 1901. The bridge was built sometime in the late 19th-century by The Stockton Forge Makers of Stockton-on-Tees who produced castings and…
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Greenhow Botton
That deep embayment at their western extremity, Greenhow Botton, around which the moors attain their greatest elevation of nearly 1500 feet, is perhaps the most remarkable feature of the hills. The Botton lies almost a mile to the south of the line of the main range of uplands and has remarkably steep and precipitous sides…
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Well Cottage, Park Square
An early ride out and a surprise to see Great Ayton empty of cars. Well, almost but an opportunity not to be missed. This is Park Square and was, before the time of a piped supply, the site of one of the village water pumps, known as the Old Grey Well. Villagers would come here…
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Woodpigeons
A pair of woodpigeons engaged in their nuptial courtship blissfully unaware of the current fury among the farming and shooting communities over whether they can be legally shot. According to the British Association for Shooting and Conservation, there are over 5 million breeding pairs of woodpigeon in the UK, a population increase of 134% between…