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Rosebay willow herb
Until the industrial revolution Chamerion angustifolium was a comparatively rare plant of woodland clearings and was often planted in gardens. Since then it has become the most successful coloniser of open land, embankments, waste grounds. I can remember the fluffy seeds being carried along in the draft of a thundering steam train. Each plant produces…
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Lordstones Country Park from Cringley End, the north-west nose of Cringle Moor
This privately owned park occupies the long flat col between Cringle Moor and Carlton Moor. Development began in 1986 with a “car park with public toilet and refreshment facilities together with accommodation for agricultural equipment”. I remember it being highly controversial at the time but was mitigated by the café being discretely hidden under a…
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Sunday morning climbing Roseberry
The National Trust acquired the main western slope of Roseberry Topping in 1984 and, by July 1995, had spent £500k on improvements with another £500k planned over the next four years. Much of this money was spent on footpath improvement which had been somewhat neglected when in private ownership. With folks climbing Roseberry increasing year…
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Little Blakey Howe
A Bronze Age burial mound topped by an 18th century boundary stone which is inscribed with the initials ‘TD’, thought to refer to Thomas Duncombe, 18th century owner of the Duncombe Estate. It is thought the stone may be a prehistoric standing stone, in which case it would have been standing when the Crutched Friars…
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An explore of the old lime kilns above Cobble Hall in Commondale
I was actually a little disappointed. The pair of entrances were obscured by a large hawthorn bush and protected by vicious nettles. So I settled for a general view of the quarry above the kilns overlooking lower Commondale. The kilns operated from 1817 to 1838 by Otley & Lightbody and exploited “a localised bed of…
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Jet mining on Roseberry Common
An intricate necklace of 110 beads of jet was found in a burial cist in Kilmartin, Argyll. It has been dated to between 2050 and 1800 BC. The jet is considered to be ‘Whitby Jet’. Jet is the fossilised remains of the Araucaria or monkey puzzle tree that were buried in marine sediments during the…
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The manuring of Kildale’s fields
The lush fields of the Kildale are the result of generations of cultivation. Under his tenancy agreement, the farmer at Percy Rigg Farm (or Viewley Hill Farm as it was formerly known in the 19th-century) would have been under certain conditions to maintain and improve his fields. He “will lay and spread … in each…
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Freedom Day
Another ‘dog day’, so named because these hot and sultry days of summer (in the northern hemisphere at least) are associated with the Dog Star Sirius rising with the sun. And ‘Freedom Day’ to boot. ‘Freedom’ to all those key workers, NHS staff and care helpers who cannot avoid the risk of prolonged exposure, to…
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Skinningrove Jetty
The old jetty at Skinningrove dominates the uncommercialised Cattersty Sands. It was built in the 1870s when the first two blast furnaces were built on the hill overlooking the little fishing village of Skinningrove. Later the works were enlarged to include five blast furnaces, with four in continuous operation. At this time the iron-smelting industry…
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