Out & About …

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

Tag: hill

  • When Roseberry Topping wears a cap …

    When Roseberry Topping wears a cap …

    You know the rest, I won’t bother repeating. So Cleveland didn’t have a clap, but a dreich day with proper rain. The first since this lockdown began. Yet Odin’s hill heaved a sigh of relief. Relief that the woods of oak and moors are finally watered. Relief in the reduced visitor footfall, the all too…

  • Roseberry

    Roseberry

    It looks like the ending of this lockdown is going to be as mismanaged as its introduction, exacerbated by certain sections of the media. Judging by their front page, The Daily Mail now seems to be intent on generating animosity for teachers by suggesting they are cowards if they don’t risk their health. We currently…

  • The bluebell meadows, Newton Woods

    The bluebell meadows, Newton Woods

    With the lockdown eased I don’t feel so guilty about posting photos taken on my daily exercise. I have deliberately avoided doing so. Roseberry is still there, and the bluebells are out, intoxicating the woodland floor with a violety-blue wash but, in the upper meadow at least, they are perhaps past their prime. Bluebells flower…

  • Cùl Mòr

    Cùl Mòr

    At 849m, Cùl Mòr is the highest of the Assynt Corbetts, a towering and majestic beast of a mountain. This view is from Stac Pollaidh. Cùl means ‘the back of’ so cùlag, for instance, is your back tooth. And mòr is the adjective ‘big’. So the name translates as ‘big back’. Which raises the question…

  • Roseberry Topping, December 2005

    Roseberry Topping, December 2005

    Lockdown Log Day 10 ….. I thought I would post this, my most favourite photo of Odin’s hill, as a reminder that it will still be there when this is all over. I have deliberately avoided mentioning the word ‘Coronavirus’ in recent posts. This now dominates our lives and is inevitably jeopardising our access to…

  • Social distancing on Roseberry

    Social distancing on Roseberry

    Should I feel guilty? On the one hand, we have our snollygoster of a Prime Minister saying that it is OK to go out for exercise (not that I would necessarily believe anything he says); silence (as of today) of all official advice from the Government and the NHS on being out in the countryside;…

  • Site of Summerhill Farm

    Site of Summerhill Farm

    In 1658 John Coulson, lord of the manor of Great Ayton, together with twenty other freeholders of the village made an agreement to enclose the ancient open fields and common pastures dividing them up amongst themselves. Sometime after this, the farm at Summerhill, nestling below Ayton Bank, would have been created. In spite of its…

  • If the sun smiles on St. Eulalie’s day, …

    If the sun smiles on St. Eulalie’s day, …

    My reprint of an 1869 book, “Weather Lore” by R. Inwards says that today, 12th February is St. Eulalie’s day. But who was St. Eulalie? St. Eulalie is included in lots of French commune names and the saying quoted is from the French. Now saints are not my thing so I have only made a…

  • Roseberry Hermitage

    Roseberry Hermitage

    At one time there was once a hermitage on the summit of Roseberry. It was referred to in a letter to Sir Thomas Chaloner (1559 – 1615) by a person with the initials ‘H. TR’ (who remains somewhat of a mystery). The letter was quoted in the ‘The Topographer and Genealogist Volume II’, edited by John Gough…

  • “No path” off Aireyholme Lane

    “No path” off Aireyholme Lane

    It would have been a bit breezy on the top of Roseberry this morning. I was battered coming across Great Ayton Moor heading into the wind. The land far side of the gate is certainly not a path but it is Open Access land all the way to the summit. I think the hawthorn trees…