Category: Cliff Rigg
-
The Belt of Venus
I came across an article the other day about the Belt of Venus. It is one of those quiet marvels the sky puts on without fuss, turning up often enough, yet missed by most people because they are too busy staring straight at the sunset or sunrise like moths at a bulb. The trick is…
-
The Scar on the Hill: Cliff Rigg Quarry
A dreich veil hung over North Yorkshire this morning, so I look back instead to yesterday, when the sky was clear, the air still, and the sun at least toyed with the idea of shining. Cliff Rigg Quarry looms above Great Ayton, a cavernous rent in the hillside left behind by an industry that has…
-
From Cliverick to Cliff Rigg: A Ridge of Hunts and Quarries
From the eminence of Cockshaw Hill, the eye is drawn across Gribdale Terrace to the hill that stands proud above the Cleveland plain. Today it is marked on the map as Cliff Rigg, but for centuries the locals knew it as Cliverick. Ralph Jackson, an eighteenth-century landowner with a taste for the hunt, noted in…
-
Clearing the Past: The Lost Drumhouse of Newton Wood
A morning with the National Trust, cutting back the summer growth from around the brick and stone remains known as the Kip, at the Cliff Rigg end of Newton Wood. The Kip is the remains of the head of a narrow-gauge tramway incline. Ore from Roseberry Ironstone Mine once hurtled down here under its own…
-
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 bikers’ berms and humps standing…
-
Sliding into Oblivion: Adventures in Cliff Rigg Quarry
Ah, Twelfth Night at last—perhaps now we can be rid of those garish Christmas lights for another ten months, though no doubt someone will cling to their festive cheer until next month. After all the news programmes whipped themselves into a frenzy last might over the impending snowstorm and freezing rain, waking up here in…
-
On yet another foul day …
… so I didn’t venture far; instead, just bagging Roseberry Topping and picking up Cliff Rigg on the way back. Cliff Rigg has a quarry that has been the subject of my posts on several occasions. This ridge is part of the Cleveland Dyke, a tough volcanic rock that forcefully juts through the much older…
-
Celebrating Capt. James Cook
“Well there goes another February 14th. Evenings of whimsical sighs, chinking champagne glasses, and adoring compliments across the Pacific as indigenous folks send their thanks out to the Hawaiian cousins that took care of business, and finally put an end to the diseased, kidnapping, murderous, thieving invader called Captain James Cook.” So wrote Tina Ngata…
-
A Nature Whodunit: The Case of the Wayward Eucalyptus
Attention green-fingered readers. Can anyone identify this tree? It’s growing in a pretty exposed spot on Cliff Rigg. According to the ‘Seek’ app on my trusty phone, it’s a member of the myrtle family, and opinion is that it might be part of the Eucalyptus genus. If that’s true, this tree has ventured quite a…
-
Christmas Contemplations
On this eve of Christmas Day, I found myself deep in thought. It seems a mere five minutes since last year. Maybe it’s just because of that old chestnut: “time flies when you’re having fun.” Each morning I do wake up excited as to what adventures the day will bring. Dopamines, those pleasure-inducing chemicals, supposedly…