Category: North York Moors
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The Bones of Winter
I don’t know where that phrase comes from but I do like it. The snow has now lost its magic, just the skeleton left. The compacted snow on the paths and tracks are lethal. Another familiar feature today for the main photo, the WW2 control bunker associated with the bombing decoy designed to deflect enemy…
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The ‘Battle’ of Guisborough
Today is the anniversary of the ‘battle’ of Guisborough in 1643. I’ve used inverted commas because there is some debate amongst historians whether it was indeed a battle or just a mere skirmish. Apparently, a battle requires some sort of planning. But a battle is good enough for me and a good enough excuse to…
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Battersby Bank
Damn, I wish I had dug my skis out of the loft. The only trouble with ‘skiløping‘ in this country is the extreme variation we get in the snow conditions. Down in the valley, there is just a ‘flindrikin‘ or smattering of snow that fell yesterday and froze overnight, but high on the moors, a crust had…
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Did I just see a faun carrying an umbrella and parcels?
A few hundred metres climb up from the slushy fields of Great Ayton we were truly in a Narnian world. Do you hear the snow against the window-panes, Kitty? How nice and soft it sounds! Just as if some one was kissing the window all over outside. I wonder if the snow LOVES the trees…
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A birthday clean up for Roseberry
Roseberry Topping, a National Trust property, was busy over the weekend when the good folk of Teesside seized the opportunity to exercise whilst enjoying the snow. But today, with the last of the snow finally melting, the remains of their adventures are revealed. The debris of broken sledges, the ubiquitous plastic bottles and drinks cans, doggie presents,…
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Roseberry Ironstone Mine
A few concrete bases and plinths are the most obvious remains of the Roseberry Ironstone Mine. One hundred and ten years ago today, the mine was in full production with a workforce of 283 men of which 229 worked underground. One of these underground workers was Dalton Taylor who lived on the High Street in…
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Aireyholme Lane
The snow is melting fast but there is still just enough to transform what would be an otherwise lacklustre scene. In the absence of snow, the plastic covered silage bales would dominate, and Aireyholme Lane would be just a non-descript track of broken bricks. Today, it’s a river of meltwater. Perhaps not a river to…
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Howden Gill on Ayton Bank with the Cleveland Hills in the distance
Not many bees and insects around at the moment. In the midst of winter, they are either dormant or are still eggs, buried deep in the leaf litter. Honey bees will be cozy in their hives surviving on a sufficient supply of honey left for them by the beekeeper. But nationwide, bees and other pollinators…
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Piss off early tomorrow’s Saturday
It was a bit bleak on Newton Moor this Friday morning. In case you don’t recognise where I’m at, it is the ‘hole in the wall’ at Little Roseberry. Odin’s Hill should be visible on the far left. Odin’s wife was Frigg, a Norse goddess in her own right, and Friday is named after her,…
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Haze fire
In his book ‘Landmarks’, Robert Macfarlane refers to ‘daalamist‘, a Shetland word for low lying mists that gather in valleys in the mornings and dissipate when the sun rises. And it was a magnificent display of daalamist today that completely stole the show. It slowly crept up the vale of Cleveland, gradually enveloping Ayton and…