Author: Fhithich
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The Slow Making of Buttermere and Crummock Water
That flat sweep of rich green pasture is not there by chance. It sits on the land bridge between Buttermere and Crummock Water, quietly doing the job of keeping the two lakes apart. It was built by a geological feature known as a fan-delta, courtesy of the steady graft of Mill Beck. Long before maps…
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Aitkin Knott and Keskadale
A sweeping, high-angle view drops into Keskadale, better known as the Newlands Valley, seen from the brown, heathered spine of Ard Crags. At the end of the ridge sits the small knoll of Aitken Knott. Here Earl Ackin, a leading Norse-Cumbrian lord and brother of Earl Boethar, was buried, set high above the land where…
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Great Ayton’s Boxing Day Ritual: Auf Wiedersehen?
In 2004, hunting foxes with dogs was banned. This did not, however, end the “sport”. It merely trimmed it back and left three flavours of “hunting” on the menu. First comes trail hunting. This involves following a scent of animal urine laid on a route that is meant to be unknown to the riders. In theory,…
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Merry Mōdraniht
Christmas seems to arrive earlier every year. This Christmas Eve the summit was packed to the rafters. This view follows the line of the old ironstone tramway. Now labelled a Permissive Path, it runs alongside the Public Bridleway that is Aireyholme Lane and is largely ignored, so it feels like just a box-ticking exercise. Long…
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Witches’ Butter
Even in midwinter, when the woods look like they have given up, they can still manage a bit of a show. There are splashes of colour if you bother to look. Bright fungi flare up against the gloom, set among the stubborn brown leaves still clinging to oak and beech, and the thick brown carpet…
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A Glimpse of a Windhover
Despite spending at least two hours outdoors on most days, close meetings with nature are actually quite thin on the ground. There is the odd distant view, a brief flicker at the edge of sight, usually gone before my patience can catch up. My bird identification skills are basic, but even I know this much.…
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Billy’s Dyke on the High Moor
Just after the midwinter feast of 1070, William the Conqueror, fresh from Christmas in York, marched north to settle a score. His garrison at Durham had been slaughtered, and he meant to answer blood with fire. What followed was ruin on a grand scale. Villages, farms, whole stretches of countryside were wiped clean, with no…
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A Long View from Cockle Scar
Scar, scarp and escarpment have a knack for muddling people. The landforms overlap, and to add to the fun a scarp can carry several scars on its own back. Despite how they look, scar is not related to the other two. It comes from the Old Norse “sker”, meaning crag, with a nod to “sgeir”.…
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Roseberry Watching Over Enclosed Land
The nearest field in today’s photograph marks the site of the old farmstead of Summerhill, born out of Great Ayton’s enclosure of the common land in 1658. At that time, the commons stretched all the way to the top of Roseberry, open and shared in a way that would soon vanish. The enclosure was carried…
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Commondale and the Forgotten Potters of the Home Front
Commondale is a quiet village now, the sort that seems still half asleep by mid-morning. It was not always like this. The arrival of the railway changed everything. A brickworks followed, then a pottery, turning out objects of real quality. When pottery declined, production shifted again. Sanitary ware was made in volume, along with facing…