Out & About …

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

Author: Fhithich

  • Sandbeds Plantation

    Sandbeds Plantation

    Lovely morning lighting in Kildale Woods. This beech plantation was probably planted soon after Coate Moor ironstone mine was re-processed in 1875. It had been going for a mere three years. I’m not sure where the name comes from, apart from the obvious, but as far as I know there are no sand deposits in…

  • “Who is the Murderer? Was there a Murder!”

    “Who is the Murderer? Was there a Murder!”

    A view from Tanton Lane across the undulating farmland between Stokesley and the village of Seamer towards the distant Cleveland Hills. It is basically the watershed of the River Tame, a tributary of the River Leven, although drainage has been improved over the centuries by the digging of ditches or stells. But I’ll return to…

  • Shooting Butt No. 2 on Warren Moor

    Shooting Butt No. 2 on Warren Moor

    I will call this a ruined grouse butt although I suspect it is still in use. Anyway above the ‘2’ is a stone with a carved grouse dated, I think, 1975. I have it in mind that this was carved by Roland S. Close (1908-1978), the amateur archaeologist and an estate worker at Kildale. If…

  • Stone Ruck

    Stone Ruck

    A rather dull morning but I somehow managed to miss the downpour. The high moors have somewhat woolly boundaries. Sometimes they follow the meandering of streams and other natural features, elsewhere they may be a straight line between landmarks drawn in an office or mapped as “Undefined”. The parish boundary between Whorlton and Bilsdale West…

  • Standing Stone, Rivelingdale

    Standing Stone, Rivelingdale

    At Percy Rigg Cross, a spur of the moment to pop down to have a look at the spring in Rivelingdale or Codhill Beck. There is one internet source which suggests the spring is a holy well with the name of ‘St. Mary’s Well‘. Apparently, it’s a name referred to by the archaeologist Roland Close…

  • Craze Naze

    Craze Naze

    What a lovely assonant name, although many Cleveland Way walkers will no doubt pass it without giving it a second thought, eager to get to Whitby or Robin Hood’s Bay, in whichever direction they are heading. On the Six-inch Ordnance Survey map of 1853, it is named as Dobson’s Nab. I wonder who Dobson was.…

  • Kildale

    Kildale

    The ‘village green’ at Kildale. Another glorious morning. And Michaelmas day to boot. St Michael’s Day, 29th September, the Feast of Michael and All Angels, one of the traditional four ‘quarter days’ in a year, the other being Lady Day (25th March), Midsummer (24th June), and Christmas (25th December). On these religious festivals, the agricultural…

  • Sandstone Quarry, Easby Bank

    Sandstone Quarry, Easby Bank

    A bit chilly but a lovely morning. This is an old sandstone or ‘freestone’ quarry on Easby Bank. A ‘bank’ is a Yorkshire term for “a steep hillside, often with a road taking a direct route from top to bottom”. But the Ordnance Survey on their Six-inch England and Wales, 1856 map annotated ‘Easby Bank’…

  • Recent rockfall, Roseberry

    Recent rockfall, Roseberry

    Spotted this morning, it must be fairly recent. Nothing untoward, just part of the natural weathering process. Imperceivable then suddenly … My first thought was that the enigmatic carved face of Roseberry was lying face-down but it’s actually on the lower crag. An odd carving, not exactly a Michelangelo but somehow quite intriguing. The big…

  • The Snake Path

    The Snake Path

    What a change from yesterday. Blue skies and autumnal warmth. William Clough and the Ashop valley. William Clough, a notorious climb up to Ashop Head, the route of an ancient path from Hayfield to the Snake Inn. Yesterday’s post featured Ashop Clough, down which the Snake Path descends. On the 29th May 1897, an agreement…