Tag: dale
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Bilsdale
I didn’t realise it this morning but in the skyline is the Bilsdale transmitter mast that was damaged by fire on 10th August. And this afternoon, it was demolished. It is no more. Wish I had known, I would have got a bit closer. And there were blue skies too unlike this morning. The replacement…
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Bransdale
Lovely autumn sunshine today in Bransdale. Not so back in 1845, when the Preston Chronicle reported a ‘REMARKABLE OCCURRENCE IN THE DALES‘: On Tuesday, the 17th ult., the inhabitants of Bransdale and Farndale were much surprised, and even alarmed, by the appearance of a very dark cloud, from which depended something like an arm, or…
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It’s going to be a scorcher
Eskdale has always been a charming valley, less frequented than the eastern dales. Times are a changing though, particularly since the demand for ‘staycations’. The National Trust have taken over one of the campsites and their marketing is being well employed. A ‘pop-up’ campsite appeared lower down the valley which caused some concern. The dale…
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Danby Rigg, flanked by Little Fryup Dale and Danby Dale
The sunshine made a refreshing change from the low cloud and mizzle of the last few days. This is taken on the descent from Danby Beacon looking due south. Just left of centre is Danby Castle, a partially ruined 14th-century pile built by the Latimer family, now part of a working farm with Court Leet…
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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…
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Insular vert in a sea of purple
When Sleddale, ‘a wide, flat valley’, tributary of the River Esk, was donated to Gisborough Priory by a group of freemen it was referred to as ‘meadow’. Now whether anyone actually lived up here at that time or whether it was part of the Priory’s many Commondale granges is unknown. After the dissolution, it was…
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The Pale
I’m always on the look out for an out of the way viewpoint. I discovered this by a short walk across the heather from a bike ride up to Percy Rigg. It shows the full extent of Lonsdale, from its head at Gribdale gate to its confluence with Kildale and portrays a microcosm of history.…
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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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A familiar old barn in Baysdale
A well known landmark to anyone who has done any walking in the Baysdale area. Sited on the bridleway along the north side of the dale, from here a track climbs up and over, north to Leven Vale and Little Kildale. Tom Scott Burns writes that this track along the north side of the dale…
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Scugdale – home of the Yorkshire Giant
Today is the birthday of one-time newspaper editor, politician, purveyor of celebrated hoaxes, promotor of a blend of fake and real, who is widely credited with coining the adage “There’s a sucker born every minute”. His dubious business practices crossed the border into the unscrupulous, and his name lives on in film and legend. He…