Out & About …

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

Tag: beech

  • 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…

  • Sandbeds Plantation

    Sandbeds Plantation

    There’s something about a beech woodland is that is magical. Strong low sunshine creating long shadows on a winter carpet of leaves. I know this is not a natural landscape, Sandbeds Plantation above the village of Kildale below Coate Moor. The uniformity of the elegant trunks is a giveaway, probably planted sometime in the late…

  • The Folly

    The Folly

    Strong morning sunshine on a stand of beech on a green hill. The stand is called “The Folly”, the hill is How Hill, a gravel mound left by the meltwater of a retreating glacier. At 166m above sea level, it is not a big hill but it is tempting to say it gave its name…

  • Holloway, Faceby Plantation

    Holloway, Faceby Plantation

    What must be an old forgotten track climbing the escarpment onto the moors through Faceby Plantation. It must be an ancient route. But leading to where? It seems to head towards the Public Footpath and linear earthwork which tops the skyline on Live Moor at Road Head above the spring with the delightful name of…

  • Clain Wood

    Clain Wood

    You don’t see that many hangers of beech in North Yorkshire, its soils are too clayey. They don’t like getting their feet wet preferring dry alkaline soils like the chalk hills of Southern England. In the north, beech is considered a non-native species. The Cleveland Way and Coast to Coast footpaths go through this little…

  • Husband and wife trees

    Husband and wife trees

    Thirteen years ago in February, we had snow and I was fascinated by a pair of intertwined beech saplings. Over the years one tree has dominated and has perhaps doubled in circumference whereas the subservient tree, if that is the right term, as hardly grown at all. The two trees have grafted together. The layers…

  • Broughton Bank

    Broughton Bank

    Dull muted colours with a splash of vibrancy

  • Young Beech Tree

    Young Beech Tree

    I found myself in Nottinghamshire today, Robin Hood country. The young scion was running in the English National Cross Country Relay Championship. It meant a wet and windy pre-dawn run up Roseberry with the dog, not many photography opportunities. Berry Hill park, Mansfield, turned out to be remarkably dry, with sandy soil and a lovely…