Tag: moorland
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Bronze Age Round Cairn on a scorched moor
Sunday before last (18th) was a glorious November day. Blue skies, little wind with many walkers taking to the moors. I recall standing on Cliff Rigg and noticing the number of folk on Roseberry. But the scene was marred by dense black smoke coming from the direction of Newton and Great Ayton Moors. The periodic…
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Park Nab from Percy Rigg
Park Nab, like a sleeping dragon with its breath creeping up the hillside. A dismal forecast. A day for keeping local. Open Space Web-Map builder Code
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Bridestones Moor
The National Trust’s rare area of heather moorland just north of Dalby Forest. Rare because it is not intensively managed unlike most of the rest of heather moorlands on the North York Moors which are managed for one purpose only, that is to maximise the breeding of grouse for shooting, in spite of having the…
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Moor burning, Stanghow Moor
The Farming Today program on BBC Radio 4 on Wednesday covered moorland management (it’s available here as a podcast for 28 days). On it was a representative from the Moorland Association who said that rotational burning of grouse moorland had been “voluntarily suspended”. If you are not aware, rotational burning is the practice when our…
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Prehistoric cross dyke, Fylingdales Moor
Fylingdales Moor is a huge area of heather moorland owned by the Strickland Estate but managed by the Hawk and Owl Trust as a conservation area using “traditional moorland management techniques”. The moor contains many archaeological features. The largest is this prehistoric cross dyke, three parallel ditches with earthbanks between, 780m long. Often the uniformity…
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Upper Ryedale
Compared to other moorland dales, such as Bilsdale, Farndale and Bransdale, the valley of the upper River Rye is relatively infertile. The river has not eroded through the sandstones to reveal the underlying shales and the broad fertile valley bottoms of these other dales are missing. Instead, there are rarely more than two fields either…
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Standing Stone, Glaisdale Swang
Glaisdale Moor is scattered with standing stones. Most mark parish boundaries and tracks and are of dressed stone indicating a probable 17th-century date. In Glaisdale Swang, a boggy hollow draining north into Busco Beck, stands an isolated menhir which looks much older but has been largely ignored by antiquarians. Open Space Web-Map builder Code
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First day of the grouse shooting season
The first day of the grouse shooting season so I took in a circuit via Urra and Greenhow Moors in the hope I might come across a shoot. It is not the “Glorious 12th”, of course, that was yesterday but being a Sunday the start is postponed for a day unless you are in Scotland…
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Highcliff Gate
It’s Yorkshire Day, a day when social media is full of memes saying “eeh by gum” and “ey up”. It seems appropriate then to have a photo of Yorkshire. A not too difficult a task and could be the within the old county of Yorkshire of course. This is Highcliff Gate, the low point between…
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Cottongrass, Hutton Moor
The cottongrass has been particularly good this year. Large swathes of the fluffy white cotton seedheads. Also known as bog cotton and ghost grass although not strictly a grass. It grows well on damp acidic moorland. The seeds and stems are supposed to be edible with its astringent properties used to treat diarrhoea. Wads of…