Out & About …

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

Tag: fields

  • The fields of Hutton Lowcross

    The fields of Hutton Lowcross

    A blue sky first thing this morning. Enough to momentarily forget our troubles. Plenty of runners and dog walkers. The hills are still open, they’re not in lockdown. Yet. Lockdown, an American word first recorded in 1973 meaning the temporary confinement of prisoners to their cells for all of the day. Quarantine, on the other…

  • Wood Field, Great Ayton

    Wood Field, Great Ayton

    In the early 17th-century, agriculture in Great Ayton followed the ancient open-field system where the cultivated land of the parish was divided into many long narrow furlongs and sub-divided again into strips. This was all manorial land and those villagers who were tenants or serfs farmed several dozen of these unfenced strips scattered throughout the…

  • Nether Silton

    Nether Silton

    Some recent felling in Silton Wood on the western flanks of the Hambleton Hills has opened up this view from Crabtree Bank. Hunter’s Hill Farm and the pasture fields of Nether Silton, with Kepwick beyond. The last of the light before the sun sank too low and the remaining blue skies clouded over. Open Space…

  • Wasdale Head

    Wasdale Head

    A view that never fails to fascinate me, especially on such a glorious day. Wasdale Head, an oasis of lush, higgledy-piggledy fields. No design went into them. I am above Stirrup Crag on Yewbarrow. Everything is much greener and wetter than when I was last on these fells in June. Wastwater must be at least…

  • Tintwistle

    Tintwistle

    Sunshine on Arnfield Low Moor, north of Tintwistle in Derbyshire. I must admit I hadn’t appreciated the county extended as far north as this. Obviously, the “moor” has been enclosed and improved over the years to produce lush pasture for sheep and cattle. In the distance the Dark Peak itself: Bleaklow. Apparently Tintwistle is pronounced…

  • Yellow is the color of my true love’s hair …

    Yellow is the color of my true love’s hair …

    … so sang Donovan way back in 1965 when fields of yellow rapeseed was almost unheard of in the UK. In 2012 the UK produced 2.6m tonnes of the seeds; worldwide production has increased over 12 fold in the same period. Its seeds are used extensively in animal feed, vegetable oil and bio-diesel. I wonder…