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Miners’ Bait Table
Has it really been 50 years since the potash mine at Boulby was opened? If so, it was before my time, I was still at uni. I can’t ever remember it not being there. It was certainly controversial at the time. “… the classic battle between the beauty of a national park and the beast…
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An attempt at recreating a vintage postcard of Saltburn-by-the Sea
This postcard is from the East Cleveland Image Archive website. The consensus is that it dates from the late 1960s. A miserable failure I think. I was working from memory and in hindsight believe I was too low down the bank. And not close enough to the edge but the nettles beat me. Some big…
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Bransdale – Eastside
Bransdale is a idyllic community of scattered farmsteads. It seems to have always been the case. Eastside and Westside were once two separate townships belonging to two separate parishes before they were merge into Bransdale-cum-Farndale in 1873. You would have thought that crime would have been a rare occurrence in this remote dale, but in…
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Greenhow Moor, looking towards the old ironstone mine at Rud Scar
On the 16th June 1814, the stagecoach ‘England Rejoice’ set off from Stockton on bound for Whitby. It was the return leg of a new service offering weekly return trips with York and Stockton. The coach had left the Freemason’s Tavern, Whitby at “exactly” six o’clock on the Monday morning bound for York. The journey…
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A view of Roseberry from Aireyholme
At a quarter past seven on the evening of 15th June 1920, the world-famous soprano Dame Nellie Melba made history by singing across the airwaves in a live broadcast from the Marconi Company’s site in Chelmsford, Essex. Whilst she was not the first person to broadcast her voice, Dame Nellie was the first professional singer,…
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Kirby Bank
Kirby Bank looking luxuriant under a coat of fresh bracken, the bane of the moors. On 14 June 1932, the Daily Mail carried a somewhat brief report: Climbed 41 Peaks in 24 Hours Mr. Robert Graham, of Keswick, Cumberland, has created a 24-hours walking and climbing record in Lakeland by scaling 41 peaks in an…
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Whitbread Memorial Bridge
One for posterity, tomorrow work begins on replacement of the Whitbread Memorial Bridge. The High Street is due to be closed for 5 days while the work is carried out. The existing footbridge over the River Leven into Waterfall Park is a war memorial. It was presented in 1919 by the Under-Manager of the Ayton…
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Esk Valley and Iburndale from Aislaby Moor
Wonderful views of the lower Esk Valley and the wooded Iburndale, but this large sandstone quarry took me by surprise. I had no idea it even existed, hidden from the A171 by woodland. But what connects this quarry with an English diarist, a mole, and the first English colony? According to one report I read…
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Stork House
It’s 2½ years since I was last at Stork House in perhaps the remotest part of Bransdale and decay has continued to creep on. Such neglect seems a real shame but the cost of renovation would be prohibitive, and of course, being a National Trust property, it can not be sold, a condition of its…
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Meadow Buttercups
Buttercup is another of those words excluded from the latest edition of the Oxford Junior Dictionary. They are giving a fine display this year. Whole fields are painted yellow yet in neighbouring fields there are none. It’s almost as if they’re a crop. These are, I believe, Meadow buttercups (Ranunculus acris). These are an indicator…
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