Tag: dry stone wall
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Those pesky rabbits
Thanks to a skill beyond The craft of honest men, I’ve stood twa-hundred years, and mair; And lang may stand again. The answer to John Wilson’s riddle is the dry-stone wall, that constant feature of Britain’s upland countryside. Of course, a dry stone wall will not stand for two hundred years, if climbing sheep have…
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A Bransdale dry stone wall – before and after
Today, there are about fifteen occupied farms and cottages scattered throughout Bransdale, making a population of around about 40. At the beginning of the 19th-century it was about 400. There were shoemakers, innkeepers, millers, shopkeepers, schoolteachers, dairymen, jetminers, as well as the expected farmers and agricultural workers. Far outnumbering the humans in the dale are…
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Dry Stone Wall, Pinchinthorpe Moor
I just love the two tone look of a dry stone wall splattered with snow. This is on the edge of Pinchinthorpe Moor. In the background is of course Roseberry Topping. Roseberry Topping was at one time mooted for a monument to Captain James Cook. A monument had been discussed for forty years but, in…
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Edward Jenner, the pioneer of the smallpox vaccine
Today’s photo is of Ward Nab, or Cook’s Crags, the name by which the climbers know it. It’s on the southern tip of Easby Moor. A completely unrelated fact is that today in 1823 Edward Jenner, the pioneer of the smallpox vaccine, died. He has been referred to as the ‘Father of Immunology’ whose work…
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There’s some good snow drifts on Carr Ridge …
… on the way up to Urra Moor. Solid enough to bare my weight … almost. It was fun until the crust gives way and I end up with a face plant. The ruined dry-stone wall marks the boundary between the parishes of Bilsdale Midcable and Ingleby Greenhow and a dressed stone declares the land…
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Who did this then?
I noticed this last week. It’s hard to imagine it was accidental. Someone has gone to the effort of moving the stones to the side creating a clear route through. If a stonewaller had done that, the stones would have been laid out and graded, heavier stones nearer the gap, with receding rows of smaller…
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Allan Tofts
Exploring prehistoric rock art on Allan Tofts above Beckhole in the Murk Esk valley. I must admit I was in the presence of an expert. Several cup-marked stones were found mostly covered with lichen which softened the carvings. Generally, it’s a very tactile experience. Even the tiny pecks left by the carver can be felt.…
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Dry stone wall restoration in Sleddale
This chap has got his work cut out. It looks a well-organised job. But is he rebuilding the wall or selling the stones off for someone’s extension? No, that would be too cynical. More likely he’s working downhill and has completed the upper half of the wall. The laid-out wall doesn’t seem to have been…
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Bransdale
A lovely day in Bransdale. Bransdale’s walls are precarious features. Irregular sandstone boulders built in a single skin with more holes than a colander, yet this wall is shown on mid-19th-century maps but as a boundary between the moor and the richer fields of the dale, it might well be much, much older, first constructed…
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Sheaths
It was the dry stone wall that first caught my eye. A wobbly wall. The two walkers are using the well constructed Cleveland Way to cross Scarth Wood Moor, a National Trust property given in 1937 by Major Herbert Peake and his son Capt. Osbert Peake, later to become the 1st Viscount Ingleby of Snilesworth.…