Out & About …

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

Author: Fhithich

  • Round Hill Iron Age hillfort, Westerdale

    Round Hill Iron Age hillfort, Westerdale

    Although a much brandied term, believe it or not there are only a handful of prehistoric fortified sites recorded within the North York Moors. All, with one exception, are ‘Promontory Forts‘, the exception being Round Hill in Westerdale. These Promontory Forts are generally located on the Cleveland and Hambleton Hills: Eston Nab, Roulston Scar, Boltby…

  • Turkey Nab from Easby Moor

    Turkey Nab from Easby Moor

    A view across the vale of Cleveland towards Turkey Nab, scarred by the recently graded track that climbs the bank. This is thought to be the start of Thurkirsti, the ancient route across the moors to Kirbymoorside. Thurkirsti does suggest a likely root for the name of ‘Turkey’ and seems more plausible than another explanation…

  • Bartle day

    Bartle day

    A dialect name for St. Bartholomew‘s Day, 24th August. A name that is preserved in the 19th-century poem by Captain John Harland ‘Reeth Bartle Fair’, a fair that was held at Reeth in Swaledale on St. Bartholomew’s Day. There are several weather related sayings for Bartle day: At St.  Bartholomew, There comes cold dew. Which…

  • Osmotherley with Hambleton End in the distance

    Osmotherley with Hambleton End in the distance

    “Osmotherley is an endearing village on the fringe of the Hambletons and the Clevelands. It lies about a mile and a half to the east of the main Thirsk – Yarm road, but it is most accessible from Northallerton. The King’s Head hotel at Clack Lane End points the way to the village. It is…

  • Whorlton Castle

    Whorlton Castle

    Another dreich morning so I thought I had better grab a few shots of Whorlton Castle before I trudged up Whorlton Lane into the cloud. I’ve covered this impressive ruin several times before. What we see today is just the gatehouse of a once magnificence castle, of the motte and bailey type, but which was…

  • St Hilda, Bilsdale Priory

    St Hilda, Bilsdale Priory

    A wet miserable day so I’ve had to resort to architectural interest. This is St. Hilda’s Church, Bilsdale, built in the mid-19th-century replacing an earlier 12th-century one. I didn’t look but there is a stone above the porch doorway, which reads: “COONDDIT ECLEE SIAAM WIILLELMVVS NOBLIS ISTAA OO INTEMERRATE NOOMMIINNE SCE VIIRGINNIIS HILDE” This evidently…

  • Bilsdale-Midcable

    Bilsdale-Midcable

    Bilsdale is a dale of two halves. Or should that be two ends? At the top is the ‘hamlet’ of Bilsdale-Kirkham. Lower down is Bilsdale-Midcable, a ‘chapelry’, the name is a corruption of “Media Capella,” a middle or midway chapel, probably an ancient chapel-of-ease in the adjoining parish of Harome. In 1132 , at the…

  • Those pesky rabbits

    Those pesky rabbits

    Thanks to a skill beyond The craft of honest men, I’ve stood twa-hundred years, and mair; And lang may stand again. The answer to John Wilson’s riddle is the dry-stone wall, that constant feature of Britain’s upland countryside. Of course, a dry stone wall will not stand for two hundred years, if climbing sheep have…

  • Gin House, Park Farm, Kildale

    Gin House, Park Farm, Kildale

    Horses were once a traditional source of power on the farm and in industry. Threshing, milling, pumping, lifting, sawing, churning would all be done under horse-power. On farms, the ‘gin’, a shortening of the word ‘engine’, was often undercover in a separate building attached to the barn called a ‘gin-house’, and in many cases these…

  • G’boro Moor Trig. Point

    G’boro Moor Trig. Point

    Today, 17 August, marks the  250th anniversary of the first recorded ascent of Ben Nevis, by Edinburgh botanist James Robertson. I think. I say that because Wikipedia says it’s the 19th. Now, I can’t remember from where I acquired that snippet of information but the Nevis Landscape Partnership website says it’s the 17th, so that’s…