Out & About …

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

Tag: Scar

  • “They say this is the finest view in all England, my liege”

    “They say this is the finest view in all England, my liege”

    So Robert the Bruce’s groom may have remarked as the Scottish King contemplated the view on the afternoon of 14th October 1322. Probably – not “Yer bum’s oot the windae” the King replied. Definitely – not. But it is quite likely this spectacular view could have indeed been seen by Robert the Bruce. On a…

  • Roulston Scar

    Roulston Scar

    The southwestern corner of the North Yorkshire Moors. 900 feet above sea level. To the north, the Hambleton Hills extend to the summit of Black Hambleton, at an altitude of 1289 feet. To the east, the moorlands stretch to Rydale at Helmsley, moorlands that are now predominately cultivated or forested. Due west, across the Devil’s…

  • Malham Cove

    Malham Cove

    To Malham for the night. Not much sign of folks self-isolating; with the car park and roadside parking full, a farmer had opened up a field to capitalise on the tourists. And it’s only March. In the village, the Buck and several cafes all seemed to be doing a busy trade. In fact, the only…

  • Finally a sunny morning and an escape from the mud

    Finally a sunny morning and an escape from the mud

    Looking down from Cockle Scar onto the village of Newton-under-Roseberry. A cold morning with just enough frost to harden the clarty paths. In the shade of the north-west slope, it’ll be a couple of hours yet before it’s warmed by the winter sun. At the western end of the village, the roof of the National…

  • Cockle Scar

    Cockle Scar

    There was a man out, a stranger to me, on a roan horse; I think he came out from Middlesbrough. I was hurrying down Roseberry by a steep track called Cat Trod and saw this man’s horse run away with him high up on the hill and take him at racing pace down the mountain…

  • Hodgson’s Leap

    Hodgson’s Leap

    Just west of Kendal is the limestone plateau of Helsington Barrows. It achieves the moderate height of 229 metres above the sea but offers fine views over the Kent estuary. On the east, there is a gentle slope down to Kendal, but the west is dominated by the dramatic Scout Scar. Hodgson’s Leap is a…

  • Great Fryup Head

    Great Fryup Head

    A vague plan hatched. Mooch up to the head of the dale through Canon Atkinson’s undercliff. End up at Yew Grain, the waterfall on the left. But The Hills proved far too interesting so this is as far as we got. The waterfall on the right is Spa Dike. Arising out of George Gap Spa,…

  • Kettleness Scar

    Kettleness Scar

    Low tide at Kettleness exposing the Pliensbachian mudstone scar below the headland. Scar comes from the Old Norse sker for a reef. The Scots skerry and Gaelic sgeir derive from the same root. The scene might look benign but the below the waters lie a graveyard of ships. The Ceres, The Curlew, The Golden Sceptre,…

  • Saltburn Scar

    Saltburn Scar

    Ended up in Saltburn this morning. The tide was out exposing the mudstone scar littered with boulders of harder rock. The mudstone was formed when Saltburn was at the bottom of a shallow sea 188 million years ago and much closer to the equator than it is now so the temperature would have been quite different…