Category: Cleveland Hills
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VE Day: 80 Years On
Eighty years have passed since Victory in Europe Day, a moment etched in the collective memory by black-and-white newsreels showing ecstatic crowds flooding the streets of London and other major cities. But away from the capital, in the quieter corners of Cleveland and North Yorkshire, the mood was more restrained â though no less meaningful,…
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Green Bank: Where the Ice Met its Match
Yesterdayâs post about Haggâs Gate set me off thinking, descending yet another rabbit hole: about the time the last glacier flowed down the Vale of York and slammed into the Cleveland Hills. About the time that ice sheet politely stopped at the hillsâ feet. About the time these great north and west escarpments of the…
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Haggâs Gate, Clay Bank or Whatever itâs Called This Week
Another photograph from yesterday. I am standing on White Hill, the easternmost bump of the so-called Four Sisters of the Cleveland Hills and gazing across the col at Haggâs Gate, or at least what used to be called Haggâs Gate, towards Carr Ridge and the highest point of the North York Moors on Urra Moor.…
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Jack’s Short Life: From Rural Bilsdale to the Trenches of the Great War
A view from Cold Moor to Garfit Gap. The row of sheds belong to the industrial pheasant rearing farm at Whingroves, a shining example of rural diversification, if one defines success as raising battery-bred birds for folk to shoot. In 1896, however, it was just another typical mixed farm on the North York Moors, run…
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Sir George the Dragon Slayer
A picturesque bank of cloud hung over the Cleveland Hills this St. Georgeâs Day morning. A reminder that even the sky can be more subtle than patriotic flag-wavers. St. Georgeâs Day stirs about as much feeling in me as Carlin Sunday, Plough Monday or Hocktide â curious relics of a myth-soaked past, clung to by…
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Crannimoor: A Hill, a Café, and a Case of a Misplaced Apostrophe
On Cringle or Cringley Moor, or if one wants to sound particularly archaic, Crannimoor. A Victorian writer hailing from the West Riding once claimed this was pronounced âCreenay.â As for its origin, the modern thinking is that it comes from the Old Norse âkringla,â meaning a âcircle.â However, the ever-reliable Reverend R. C. Atkinson, walking…
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The Cleveland Hills on a Myst-Hakel Morning
I slogged up through the old whinstone quarry, staring at the ground, my thoughts elsewhere. I braced myself to find the usual rubbish left behind by quad bikers, as if the world is their personal skip. I could hear them active yesterday. The frost-covered, sterile earth stretched ahead, with the bikersâ berms and humps standing…
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A Slog up Roseberry Topping and a Nod to Pagan Roots
I could claim it was a brisk dash up Roseberry Topping this morning, but in truth, it was more of a plodding trudge. Perhaps it only felt that way because I foolishly dressed for winter, not realising it would be unseasonably warm for Christmas Eve. This is the view from the summit, looking down on…
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A Ruined Shelter, a Romantic Name, and some Random Latin
An opportunistic photograph, captured during a rare moment when the winter sun managed to pierce the unrelenting gloom of an overcast day. Here I am on Cold Moorâor, if you are feeling fanciful, Mount Vittoria Plantation. I prefer the latter; it has that pretentious 19th-century flair. This narrow strip of heather moor overlooks the Donna…
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The ScaurâMusings on Glaciers and Randklufts
I revisited an old stomping ground todayâa route I came to know far too well during the 2001 Foot and Mouth epidemic, when it was the only slice of countryside not off-limits. Back then, it was decorated with the charred remains of several burnt-out cars, but these have now been swapped for a battalion of…