Tag: WW1
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The Friends’ School’s Plan for Invasion in 1914
Dominating Great Ayton’s soggy High Green, this soggy Monday morning is the stern façade of the erstwhile Friends’ School, now converted into residential dwellings. The village well, no longer in its original spot, was moved to make room for extra car-parking. I recently read an account detailing the school’s arrangements in case of a prospective…
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The Legacy of Marske Aerodrome: its role in WW1
Back in October 1973, I entered my first orienteering event, which happened to be in the bramble-infested maze of Errington Wood. Needless to say, I got hopelessly lost, but that experience marked the beginning of my lifelong love of the sport. Unfortunately, the course that day didn’t take us up to the high point of…
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Lonsdale with its confluence with Kildale
We are all familiar with War Memorials in villages and towns throughout the country that record the fallen, yet anything written about the soldiers who served is largely restricted to family histories. Kildale was a sparse community but many families had someone serving abroad. On 18 February 1916, the Whitby Gazette carried a list of…
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WW1 Gun Battery
I came across a ghostly complex of forgotten concrete structures whilst wandering through Dalmeny Park on the coast of the Firth of Forth near Edinburgh. It turns they are part of a gun battery built during the First World War to protect the Firth with its naval shipyards. Work on this battery actually began before…
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War Memorial, Skelderskew Moor
On the eve of a General Election, it is perhaps time for a moment’s reflection on how our 21st-century society has benefitted from the bravery of the young men who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country over a hundred years ago. Robbie Leggett and Alf Cockerill, the two names on the memorial, were boyhood…
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Ayton Mines Memorial Bridge
During a brief break in the weather a chance to photograph a swollen River Leven below the Ayton Mines Memorial Bridge near Suggits. The footbridge was erected as a memorial to the five workers of Ayton Mines who lost their lives during the 1914-1918 war: From the 4th Battalion, Alexandra Princess of Wales’s Own (Yorkshire)…
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The Stray
Almost 100 years ago this peaceful scene along The Stray between Redcar and Marske was full of military activity. Out at sea ships carried vital supplies up and down the coast in a channel constantly swept clear by minesweepers and protected by cruisers. Above them, airships kept a watch for the wake left by German…