Tag: medieval
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Castle Hill, Easby
From a distance Castle Hill is barely a ripple on the flatlands of the Vale of Cleveland. Now dominated by mature trees, it would, in the 12th-century, have commanded fine views and overlooked any movement on the King’s road from Stokesley to Whitby that passed the foot of the eminence on which the castle stood.…
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Kildale and St. Cuthbert’s Coffin
I delayed going out this morning because of the dismal weather. It was still raining when I left the house at 12:00 but by the time I crossed the River Leven at the other end of the village the sun was out. I discovered something about Kildale the other day, although when you think about…
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A view of Swainby from Scarth Nick …
… but the point of interest is not the village of Swainby, nor the wooded Whorl Hill on the far right. It is the field visible in the between the gap in the treeline on the left. Or more specifically the isolated tree in that field. It is around about here that a stone coffin…
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The Wishing Stone
This has been on my to-do list since the spring after reading a blog post on the Arcanum web-site. It’s a large, deep, circular basin on a boulder on Ingleby Moor that is speculated to have be manmade and used for ritual purposes: the making of wishes or prayers, or curses and so on. As…
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Percy Cross Rigg
These posts often result from a faint memory which I then spend an hour or so trying to verify or research further in the evening — it beats watching ‘Strictly …’. But then, every so often, I plunge head first down a rabbit hole after I’ve pressed the post button. Yesterday was a case in…
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Rudland Rigg
I have often wondered what the old medieval roads across the moors were like. The temptation is to imagine they were similar to modern access roads but these have had the benefit of contemporary maintenance techniques with hydrocarbon fuelled machines. I think pot-holes and deep mud would have been the norm. Route were north-south, following…
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Melegate
The cyclists and the walkers are on the Cleveland Way between Little Roseberry and the Kildale track. This is supposed to be the route of an ancient and important route called ‘Melegate‘. The name is mentioned in a 13th-century charter between Guisborough Priory, and Richard de Hoton and his brother, Humphrey, following a dispute over…
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Baysdale Abbey Bridge
A single-arch bridge crossing Baysdale Beck, near to and contemporary with the small Cistercian nunnery of Baysdale Abbey. Which puts its construction in the 13th-century, although “the attached piers and parapet are probably 17th-century in origin with later alterations”. Which begs the question of which bits are original? No trace remains of the abbey, its…
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Dunadd
More than 1,300 years ago, this part of Argyll was known as Dàl Riata and was peopled by Gaels, known as the Scotti. The royal centre of Dàl Riata was a fortress built on top of a rocky hill beside the River Add: Dunadd, or Dùn Ad in Gaelic. It is said that the Gaels…
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Helmsley Castle
Not inspired by a wind-blasting on the high moors I headed to Rievaulx and a sheltered bimble along the Rye valley. For 900 years Helmsley Castle, standing on its rocky outcrop on the north bank of the Rye, has dominated the town to the west. Castles are almost entirely absent from the bleak upland plateau…