Out & About …

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

Tag: ironstone

  • Siberia on the Moors — A Lost Railway Community

    Siberia on the Moors — A Lost Railway Community

    For nigh on seventy years, this exposed stretch on Greenhow Moor, with its splendid panorama of the Cleveland Plain and beyond, served as home for a community of railway workers and their families. Sited at the top of the Ingleby Incline, a cluster of building once stood here, in a location so remote and exposed…

  • Pig-Iron to Steel: Skinningrove’s Industrial History

    Pig-Iron to Steel: Skinningrove’s Industrial History

    Have you ever pondered the origins of Skinningrove, nestled in this sheltered valley leading to the North Sea? What led to its establishment there? I certainly have. Back in 1873, when the Loftus Iron Company first erected two blast furnaces on that hill overlooking the valley, the iron-smelting industry was already thriving in the Cleveland…

  • A familiar scene to many …

    A familiar scene to many …

    … least not Cleveland Way walkers heading south to Helmsley. Walkers going clockwise will be trudging up this bank to Coate moor and Capt. Cook’s Monument. Bankside Farm itself probably dates from the 18th-century, while the distant building to the right is the former manager’s house and workshop for the Coate Moor Iron Company. The…

  • Monument Mine

    Monument Mine

    A wet day so keeping it close with an exploration of the ironstone mine below Capt. Cook’s Monument. Winter is the best time for viewing the remains, before the brambles and gorse run riot. The featured image is an overview of the site. It’s been taken from approximately above what would have been one of…

  • Incline Top

    Incline Top

    My morning constitutional today featured a one way run from Bank Foot to Clay Bank over Urra Moor. And to save a bit of time I used the old railway incline to ascend to the moor top. I’d forgotten how much of a slog it is. Nowadays, I am, more often than not, descending on…

  • Warren Moor Ironstone Mine

    Warren Moor Ironstone Mine

    I can’t believe it is almost five years since I posted a photo of the elaborate Victorian chimney in the upper reaches of the Leven valley. Back then the site was well fenced off, with inquisitive visitors made unwelcome. Since then, there has been much conservation work carried out. A gate and information board now…

  • Commondale from the south

    Commondale from the south

    The quiet village of Commondale, once a hive of industrial activity. Best known is the brickworks of the Cleveland Fire Brick and Pottery Company which occupied the small dale behind old school and St Peter’s Church built with its distinctive red bricks. This was started in 1860 by John Slater Pratt, a printer from Stokesley,…

  • Belmont Ironstone Mine

    Belmont Ironstone Mine

    The drift entrance to the mine which operated between 1907-1931 although no ore was extracted after 1921. It has been deliberately blocked for public safety. The brick building behind is an electrical sub-station and probably dates from 1914 when an electric sirocco fan was installed to replace the old method of ventilation by lighting a…

  • Ingleby Incline

    Ingleby Incline

    The old railway incline for the Rosedale Branch ironstone railway. Almost a mile long with a maximum gradient of 1 in 5. A rake of trucks full of iron ore would be lowered down by a steel rope, which looped around a drum at the top and pulled up a rake of empty trucks. Speeds…

  • West Beck, Beck Hole

    West Beck, Beck Hole

    Exploring the excavations of the 19th-century ironstone mining activities in Combs Wood near Beck Hole. These have been carried out by the Land of Iron project over a three year period. We found them easily enough. Most intriguing was a deep pit thought to have contained a waterwheel with a range of remains above which…