Category: Gisborough Moor
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Cherry-Picking the Ashes
Another shot from yesterday, taken not a hundred yards away. This is Penrod Spring. These days it amounts to little more than a damp patch in the heather, not easy to find. Once, though, it mattered enough that somebody built a dry-stone wall round it, by hand, stone on stone, to mark it out as…
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The Little Used Footpath to Sleddale
Penrod Hill is a high point on Gisborough Moor, and a public footpath drops from it into Sleddale, a valley boxed in by moor on every side. The name comes from the old English word “slaed”, meaning a wide, flat valley. A lonely farmstead sits at the bottom, cut off from the rest of the…
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Westwith Chace
Westworth was once a favourite training ground of mine, and I knew it inside out. That plantation of mature conifers across the valley? I first passed through it when the spruce were no more than knee-high. By then, Westworth Farm itself was long gone. It had stood near that solitary tree on the right, its…
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From Helmsley to the Moors: Where Exactly Is Blackamoor?
Blackamoor is the old name for both the wider moors and the northern end of the Hambleton Hills—though modern maps prefer this as the more polite “Black Hambleton.” For most of the year, the name “black” suits the moors. Barring a brief burst of ling bloom or a winter’s snow, the moors always have a…
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Of Dogs, Grouse and Bureaucratic Logic
My trusted weather source, yr.no, claimed with confidence that rain would begin at noon. The climb from Guisborough had been hot and close under a humid sun. At 11:50, standing on Potter’s Ridge, the sky had turned grim. A few minutes later, the rain came — sudden, heavy, and, in truth, rather welcome. I had…
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The Government’s Proposals to Curb Heather Burning
Gisborough Moor, from across Sleddale, is marked by neat, rectangular patches of scorched heather. These are “swiddens,” the product of controlled burning, a practice designed to create the perfect environment for grouse. The idea is simple: burn the old heather, let fresh shoots grow, and produce an abundance of birds ready to be shot in…
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Sinister Relics at Penrod Spring
Two years ago, during one of my habitual wanderings, I stumbled upon a peculiar structure concealed within a 19th-century walled enclosure at the so-called Penrod Spring. I say “so-called” because there was no trace of water. Buried in its crumbling remains was a sinister wooden contraption, shaped like a ‘T’—reminiscent of some oversized bird perch—adorned…
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Westworth Reservoir: Gorse and Other Triumphs of Nature
In my Guisborough days, I would often run a circuit round Westworth Reservoir. This morning, in a fit of nostalgia, I returned to that old stomping ground. How changed it is. The former reservoir bed has given way to a jungle of gorse, now sprawling with abandon, save for a dank, overgrown marsh clinging feebly…
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From spoil to… What will this heap become?
I stumbled upon an intriguing new feature in the Cleveland Hills today. Gazing westward, Highcliff Nab stands prominent in the background. A vast expanse of Guisborough Forest had been clear-felled and replanted with conifer seedlings. Amidst this scene, someone had built a conical mound of earth, about three metres high with a flat top. But…
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Highcliff Gate — From Glacial Spillway to Forgotten Farm Track
The recent felling of Guisborough Forest has completely changed the landscape, evident even on this dreary spring day. Down in the valleys, vernal signs are everywhere: hawthorn buds are emerging, and the woods are alive with birdsong, and some birds are even gathering nest stuff. But up here on Potter’s Ridge, winter’s still holding its…