Category: Eston Nab
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The Teesworks Deal: Who Gets the Gold and Who Takes the Risk?
An article in the latest Private Eye about the grand scheme to rebuild the old steelworks on the Tees set me thinking of Eston Nab, where I used to run at lunchtimes while working at ICI Wilton. The steelworks was also one of my sites back then, so its rise, fall and resurrection have always…
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A Short History of the Ormesby Ironstone Mine and Its Surroundings
After many years, I finally returned to Flatts Lane Country Park and was astonished to find it looking clean and free of litter. This was undoubtedly the work of the Friends of Flatts Lane Country Park, who evidently have more patience than I do. The same could not be said for the approach via Flatts…
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Ellen Wilkinson: The Fiery Reformer of Middlesbrough East
It has been some time since I was last on Eston Nab, that famed vantage point over Teesside, whose views—oh, those familiar scenes—shift and churn like the Tees itself in flood, eternally restless, rarely still. Come with me, back to this day, 29 October, 100 years ago, 1924. The British people were trudging to the…
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Eston Nab — From Bronze Age Fort to Burnt-Out Cars
“The remains of old bottles were scattered all along our route, and other rubbish was offensively obvious everywhere. There were broken fences and damaged trees. Saddest sight of all was the old watch tower which is rapidly losing all recognisable shape under the rough hands of time, the weather and mischievous sightseers.” Not my words,…
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Eston Nab
Another dreich day so cheating again and posting a photo from yesterday’s jaunt over Eston Nab. The Nab is both loved and abused by the folk of Teesside. In a booklet entitled ‘Green Ways around Teesside‘, the ‘Rambler’ lamented on the state of the hill: “The remains of old bottles were scattered all along our…
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The foothills of Eston Moor
I’d like to say that it was the two small hills across the vale of Cleveland caught my attention, but it was actually the two cols; cols through which the roads of Ormesby Bank and Flatts Lane pass. The hills though — but perhaps ‘knoll‘ is a better word, ‘hill‘ sounds much too lofty — …
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Eston Bank
I do try to avoid anniversaries of births and deaths in these postings but on this in 1891, John Marley, the mining engineer who, it could be said, along with John Vaughan, gave birth to the iron industry on Teesside, died at the age of 67. Iron had been worked in the Cleveland area since…
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Lowcross Swangs
A pastoral scene looking across Lowcross Swangs to Barnabyside of Eston Moor. A ‘swang‘ is a Yorkshire term for a low-lying piece of grassland that is liable to flooding. To the left of the photo, the drainage is west to the River Tame and eventually the Tees; to the right, the flow is east into…
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Jemmy Coulstin’s Hill
A chance opportunity to run across Eston Nab from Flatt’s Lane to Guisborough. My visits to Eston are very irregular, and I quickly remembered why. The lower slopes were linear gloops created by offroad motorcycling enthusiasts but I soon left these climbing up above the sandstone strata. Eston Moor, with its high point of the…
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Barnaby Moor
On this day in 1941, at 24,000 feet above Eston Moor F/Lt Tony Lovell DFC, flying a Spitfire from No.41 Squadron, engaged a German Junkers Ju 88 aircraft on a reconnaissance mission to Manchester. It was in the middle of the afternoon. The Junkers was shot down and crashed, exploding on impact, on Barnaby Moor. The…