Out & About …

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

Tag: vale

  • Waites House Farm, Westerdale

    Waites House Farm, Westerdale

    On 13th January 1858 the Teesdale Mercury carried a report: “SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION – An instance of spontaneous ignition among alum shale has lately occurred in the parish of Westerdale in the North Riding. At a certain point in Westerdale Head the process of jet mining has been carried on for some time past, and a…

  • Botton Head

    Botton Head

    I mentioned last week that I thought the heather was late coming into bloom this year. Well, the sunny spell has given it a spurt and it’s now getting there. Still not as intense as I remember though. This is taken from the old Rosedale mineral railway near to the top of the incline and…

  • On Wayworth Moor

    On Wayworth Moor

    There’s nothing quite like exploring a new place, seeing a new view, or just the sudden recognition of a familiar view from a different direction. The last time I was on Wayworth Moor to look at the stone circle was 2016. Five years, it seems an eternity. Ahead, Leven Vale is suffused in the verdurous…

  • Nab Ridge, Kepwick

    Nab Ridge, Kepwick

    A walk from Osmotherley to Boltby along Hambleton Street, the old Drovers’ Road. A rather dull afternoon with failing light and a bit of drizzle. This is taken from the Drover’s Road looking down along Nab Ridge onto the village of Kepwick. Just beyond Kepwick and slightly to the right is Howe Hill, which, although…

  • Grasmere from Grey Crag

    Grasmere from Grey Crag

    In 1799 William and Dorothy Wordsworth moved to Dove Cottage, Grasmere. While both siblings composed poetry Dorothy also kept a journal documenting their life in the vale. In one entry in her journal, she writes: “… our dear Grasmere, making a little round lake of nature’s own, with never a house, never a green field,…

  • Lonsdale

    Lonsdale

    There is a wonderful phrase in Hebridean Gaelic, rionnach maoimi, meaning literally a mackerel panic but used to refer to the shadows cast on a hillside by clouds moving across the sky on a windy day. I am sure there must be a kindred word for a shaft of sunlight falling on the ground through…

  • The Cleveland Tontine

    The Cleveland Tontine

    A view from Swinestye Hill across the Vale of Mowbray. The Cleveland Tontine Inn, bottom left at the junction of the A19 and A172 is officially the northeasternmost point of the vale which boundary heads arbitrarily in a northeasterly direction to Scotch Corner. To the south is the Vale of Mowbray, to the north the…

  • On a windswept Roseberry Common

    On a windswept Roseberry Common

    Not many visitors climbing Roseberry today. There will be plenty of car parking down in Newton. On popular days parking is becoming very difficult. Folk are reluctant to use the National Park run carpark because of the cost preferring instead to park on the verges. There are proposals to introduce double yellow lines and an…

  • Hanging Stone and the Vale of Mowbray

    Hanging Stone and the Vale of Mowbray

    A hammer-shaped sandstone rock on the southern end of Thimbleby Bank, between Osmotherley and Over Silton and offering fine views across the Vale of Mowbray. Views which were spoilt by the noise of a constant barrage of gunshots, many a clay pigeon blasted to smithereens. The Vale of Mowbray is that the broad lowlands between…

  • Vale of Cleveland

    Vale of Cleveland

    I haven’t been up to Capt. Cook’s Monument for a while. Blue skies with the bracken heavy from overnight rain. This view across the flat, fertile Vale of Cleveland is from an abandoned sandstone quarry on Easby Moor. In the distance are the Cleveland Hills; Turkey Nab is on the left. Open Space Web-Map builder…