Category: North York Moors
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Hooton
One of my regular runs during this latest lockdown has been from Pinchinthorpe Walkway back home to Great Ayton, so I have become fascinated by the ancient township of Hooton, or to use its modern name, Hutton. So much so that the spline of the much thumbed book I have, “Two Ancient Townships – Studies…
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Here be a dragon
“First Swainby meets the eye, next Whorlton near, Its ancient castle mouldering in a heap : A little distant stands a mount rotund, The form of Roseberry, but lower much: Upon its summit swords and divers arms Were found, dug up, supposed a battery there To batter down the castle built below.” PIERSON’S Roseberry. Whorl…
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Cringle Crag
Last night I found a book I had forgotten I had, tucked behind the book shelves. Tom Burns Scott has written extensively about the North York Moors. In this book, he wrote of an engraving in an old quarry face on Cringle Moor that records “a change of ownership of the Dromonby estate in 1732”.…
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The Right to Roam
I’ve had my knuckles rapped. I recently received this email Hello, It’s been brought to my attention by a friend that you are publicising The Buckingham Stone and encouraging people to visit it and giving them a Geographic location for it. Are you aware that the Buckingham Stone is on private land and not on…
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Devil’s Matchsticks
One of the lesser known residents of Great Ayton was William Mudd (1829–1879) who the head gardener for Thomas Richardson, a retired banker and one of the village’s most influential and generous benefactors. Mudd came under the influence of George Dixon, a fellow Quaker and superintendent of the North of England Agricultural School, the predecessor…
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“Murder by a Farmer in the North-Riding” (Part 3)
It is probably a bit of a stretch to say that when Mr. Forth carved his name on this sandstone crag at the top of Roseberry Topping, he had read the report the trial of Bradshaw Brougham Graham four years earlier in the Leeds Mercury. He may have not even been aware of it, but…
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“Murder by a Farmer in the North-Riding” (Part 2)
If you have not read the first part of this history then it might make more sense if you did. We left Bradshaw Graham languishing in gaol charged with the wilful murder of William Johnson on the night of 19th October 1863. Perhaps he was reflecting on his life so far. Perhaps he was thinking of…
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Bousdale Brickworks
With cloud shrouding the moorland tops, I kept low and, taking advantage of the winter vegetation die back, had a little potter around the old brickworks at Bousdale, now part of a fitness course for the Pinchinthorp Visitor Centre. A ‘Brick Field’ is shown on the 1856 Ordnance Survey map (surveyed 1853). It is thought…
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So that was February
How was it for you? We certainly have had some days of snow early in the month: If February give much snow, A fine summer it doth foreshow. But, on the other hand, the last few days have had the air of Spring: If February is dry there is neither good corn nor good hay.…
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Thruhkelde
Last Sunday I wrote about the 13th-century charter ‘Cartularium Prioratus de Gyseburne’ in which ‘Thruhkelde’ or the ‘spring on the pass’ was mentioned. It is thought to be Codhill Spring on the 1856 Ordnance Survey map. Passing by today, I though I would take a look. It’s easy enough to find, barely five metres from the…