Out & About …

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

Tag: history

  • Lord Feversham’s Legacy: A peep into the history of Bilsdale

    Lord Feversham’s Legacy: A peep into the history of Bilsdale

    The main north-south route in the western half of the North York Moors winds through the beautiful Bilsdale valley. From the northern point of Clay Bank to the southern point of Newgate Bank, the dale is dotted with farms that boast vast fields of pasture, all bounded by sturdy dry-stone walls. The farms are enclosed…

  • Coal Mining in Baysdale: success or failure?

    Coal Mining in Baysdale: success or failure?

    The North York Moors might not be the first place you think of when it comes to coal mining, but it was actually a thriving industry at the end of the 18th century. Most of the mining areas were located along the high watershed to the south of the Esk valley, like Rudland Rigg and…

  • Butts and bullets: A bimble up Butt Lane

    Butts and bullets: A bimble up Butt Lane

    Walking up Butt Lane (right of centre in the photo), I couldn’t help but notice the “tree-mendous” (sorry) amount of felling that’s taken place in Guisborough Woods in recent years. And, lo and behold, I saw an obvious path leading upwards. I had never seen it before, which turned out to be the work of…

  • All Saints Church, Great Ayton

    All Saints Church, Great Ayton

    The architectual historian Nikolaus Pevsner has this to say about All Saints:— Nave and chancel. Norman masonry, Norman chancel N window, Norman nave corbel-table, S doorway with two orders of colonnettes, scallop capitals and zigzag in the arch, blocked N doorway. The chancel arch has scallop and spirally volute capitals. But the nave fenestration is…

  • Runswick Bay Rescue Boat

    Runswick Bay Rescue Boat

    While a number of fishermen were on the look-out during the height of the storm at Runswick Bay on Saturday afternoon, a large laden vessel was seen drifting towards the shore. So enormous were the waves that at times only the tops of the masts were visible. Just outside the broken water a huge wave…

  • ‘A Yorkshire Tragedy’

    ‘A Yorkshire Tragedy’

    I don’t usually do this view — on a sunny day it would be into the sun — but, a bit cloudy today, and with a surprising chilly wind. From Great Ayton Moor. On this day (23rd April) in 1605, Walter Calverley of Calverley Hall murdered his two sons, and seriously wounded his wife, and…

  • ‘Ohensberg’

    ‘Ohensberg’

    The bridleway between Aireyholme Farm and Hutton village, passing through the col on Roseberry Common, is referred to as ‘the great road of Ohensberg‘ in one of the foundation charters of Guisborough Priory of about 1120. The original is in medieval Latin of course but nevertheless it sounds as if it was a main route…

  • The lonely death of Christopher Hutchinson

    The lonely death of Christopher Hutchinson

    A farm with a strange name, Stingamires. Named after the gill beyond. But what came first, the farm or the gill? The farmhouse and attached outbuilding are Grade II Listed. The farmhouse was built in the 17th-century as a thatched longhouse typical of the North York Moors and containing a full cruck truss. A year…

  • Kirby Bank — a battleground between a David and a Goliath

    Kirby Bank — a battleground between a David and a Goliath

    In 1854 there was a legal dispute over the boundary between Bilsdale and Kirby which has been decribed as a ‘David and Goliath’ legal battle. The plaintiff (he who brought the case) was the rich and influential Lord Feversham, Lord of the Manor of Bilsdale. The defendant was James Emerson who was described in the…

  • “New Holy Trinity Secondary School foundation stone laid”

    “New Holy Trinity Secondary School foundation stone laid”

    Walking along the Cleveland Way over Codhill Slack, I was reminded of a posting from 2015 when stepping onto this broken piece of flagstone. I surmised then it was half of a foundation stone from the Holy Trinity Church of England Senior School in Halifax. Fifty metres or so further on is the other half.…