Tag: 20th Century

  • Where Birch Meets Rust: A Forgotten Landmark

    Where Birch Meets Rust: A Forgotten Landmark

    Descending from Highcliff Nab to Guisborough, I felt a sudden urge to revisit a landmark I often passed on my runs around these woods many years ago. This viewpoint, on top of a spoil heap from the Belmont Ironstone Mine, was mercifully spared the blight of commercial conifers—perhaps because even saplings had standards and found…

  • Greenhow Botton with a Fleeting Glimpse the Birthplace of Ivor Cummings

    Greenhow Botton with a Fleeting Glimpse the Birthplace of Ivor Cummings

    A view down Greenhow Botton towards Roseberry, which distinctive shape barely manages to poke above the skyline. Remarkably, it is a clear day—clear enough that, far off in the distance, from this the highest point of the North York Moors, Hartlepool is visible, gleaming faintly through a break in the clouds. Why bother mentioning Hartlepool,…

  • A Mild Christmas and Damnable Corsets: A Hundred Years Ago in Yorkshire

    A Mild Christmas and Damnable Corsets: A Hundred Years Ago in Yorkshire

    A sunny Roseberry loiters under a moody grey cloud, creating a scene that could make even the most indifferent observer take out their iPhone. Light and shadow play their parts, flaunting a contrast that seems to suggest nature itself has a flair for the dramatic. But exactly one hundred years ago, the 9th of December…

  • Jackson’s Bank—Medieval Trod

    Jackson’s Bank—Medieval Trod

    As you reach the top of Jackson’s Bank, it is hard not to imagine that, at the turn of the last century, weary walkers resting upon these boulders were serenaded by the rather pastoral sounds of iron-laden trucks grinding, screeching, and clattering their way down that incline on the opposite side of Greenhow Botton. This…

  • Westworth Reservoir: Gorse and Other Triumphs of Nature

    Westworth Reservoir: Gorse and Other Triumphs of Nature

    In my Guisborough days, I would often run a circuit round Westworth Reservoir. This morning, in a fit of nostalgia, I returned to that old stomping ground. How changed it is. The former reservoir bed has given way to a jungle of gorse, now sprawling with abandon, save for a dank, overgrown marsh clinging feebly…

  • Ellen Wilkinson: The Fiery Reformer of Middlesbrough East

    Ellen Wilkinson: The Fiery Reformer of Middlesbrough East

    It has been some time since I was last on Eston Nab, that famed vantage point over Teesside, whose views—oh, those familiar scenes—shift and churn like the Tees itself in flood, eternally restless, rarely still. Come with me, back to this day, 29 October, 100 years ago, 1924. The British people were trudging to the…

  • Echoes of the Leven: A River’s Memory

    Echoes of the Leven: A River’s Memory

    A quick photo before raindrops splattered the camera lens. The River Leven is high, a few determined souls brave the weather, and the paths are mostly puddles. I have taken a photo from this spot before, though I only realised that after I got home. My computer, as ever, has a far better memory than…

  • The Rise and Fall of Cod Beck Reservoir

    The Rise and Fall of Cod Beck Reservoir

    Given the recent weather, I was quite taken aback to find Cod Beck Reservoir so low, although this is by no means unprecedented. I have a sneaking suspicion that Yorkshire Water has intentionally carried out a water release, perhaps as part of a scour test or some other enigmatic plan. I’ll resist from drawing any…

  • 1939: When Guisborough Welcomed Middlesbrough’s Evacuees

    1939: When Guisborough Welcomed Middlesbrough’s Evacuees

    Highcliffe Nab, that well-known sandstone crag that dominates the view from Guisborough, has been the subject of these posts many times. But Kemplah, which sits in its shadow, doesn’t get nearly enough attention. The old settlers clearly thought this promontory was important since there’s evidence of both early British and Roman activity there. The name…

  • The White Flint Legacy of Castleton

    The White Flint Legacy of Castleton

    At the crest of an old tramway incline from the former silica quarries, once the workings of the Sheffield-based firm J. Grayson Lowood & Co. Ltd., one gazes across the Esk valley. Just off-centre in the distance lies the looming hump of Castleton Rigg, climbing to the highest point of the “Fat Moors.” The village…