Category: Great Ayton
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Cliff Rigg Quarry
It was the extensive quarrying of whinstone during the 19th and early 20th centuries that created this massive gash in Cliff Rigg. Extremely hard, this narrow wall of igneous rock was formed by molten larva protruding through the sedimentary layers and was much valued for cobble setts and in road building. It has been almost…
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Great Ayton High Green and the former Friends’ School
In 1997 The Friends’ School closed its doors and the large complex of buildings were converted into apartments. It had dominated Great Ayton High Green and had been an important part of village life since 1841 when it was established by Quakers as the North of England Agricultural School “to cater for the children of…
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Airy Holme
A view from Roseberry Topping to Capt. Cook’s Monument across the great bowl of Airy Holme, Slacks Wood and Ayton Bank, just before a tremendous downpour. The National Trust boundary of Roseberry is the fence line in the foreground just before the bracken limit. Aireyholme Lane can just be made out crossing left to right.…
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Why do sheep always face the same way?
It was almost a failure to post today. I have been at the National Trust property of Thompson’s Rigg near Dalby building leaky dams and sheep gates across Crosscliffe Beck. Sheep gates to prevent sheep from passing under the new fence where it crosses the beck and leaky dams to slow down the water flow…
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Aireyholme Lane
Aireyholme Farm from the south-eastern flank of Roseberry with the Cleveland Hills in the distance. The view is looking down Aireyholme Lane with the course of the old narrow-gauge tramway from the Roseberry Ironstone Mine to its left. Just before the tree, the tramway took a sharp right and headed across the fields to the…
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Wurzelweg
I keep a to-do list of words which I may find useful. I knew yesterday’s word was in it somewhere and it was while searching for that word that I came across another word that I had completely forgotten about. A word which, upon waking up to rain and low cloud, provided the inspiration for…
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Harlequin Ladybird
Found this wee beastie in the garden. A bishy barny bee as they say in Norfolk. But this is no ordinary ladybird, it’s a Harlequin ladybird, Harmonia axyridis, a voracious invader from Asia. Sometime in the 1980s farmers in the U.S. began introducing the Harlequin to North America to control the aphids that were feeding…
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Slacks Beck
I know a confluence is where two streams or rivers converge. The usual node in a river network. A meeting of waters. But what is a parting of waters called? Where a stream separates into two courses. I know of one, in the Lake District, Raise Beck above where it tumbles down to Dunmail Raise.…
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I’ve been running and exploring the local moors and woods since moving to Great Ayton in 1973
I thought I knew every nook and cranny but today I came across this brick structure on Ayton Bank. Quite chuffed, I feel I’ve made a major discovery. It looks like a water tank or cistern. There is a date scratched on the brickwork of 1952 but I think that is just graffiti. More likely…
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James Cook Memorial Garden
On 25 May, 1769, James Cook wrote in his journal “Most part of these 24 hours Clowdy with frequent Showers of rain”. Pretty much like the weather this morning in his home village of Great Ayton then, if a tad warmer. Cook’s ship the Endeavour was moored offshore Tahiti in preparation for his task of…