Category: Gribdale
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Sunrise on Cliff Rigg
Two major achievements. First I dragged myself out of the house whilst still dark and secondly, I managed a hypnopompic run up Cliff Rigg, the first since my attempt at an Icarus imitation. They say the darkest hour is before dawn. That’s probably not true once your eyes have become accustomed. Dick Turpin and his…
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Pinch, punch, first of the month …
… and no returns. October, the eighth month of the calendar of Romulus, the first king of Rome. And what a miserable morning. But it had brightened up by the end of the afternoon. A view south-east from Cliff Rigg towards Gribdale and Cockshaw Hill. Open Space Web-Map builder Code
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Gribdale Terrace
An evening stroll up Capt.Cook’s Monument hoping to catch a spectacular sunset. Instead, a diffuse grey blanket gradually smothered the sun. The white cottages of Gribdale Terrace, built for whinstone miners, on the far left overlooked by Roseberry Topping. Open Space Web-Map builder Code
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Ayton Banks Alum Works
A cold, overcast day. The fresh snow of the last few days has aged into a dirty wet surface. I found myself above Gribdale looking down on the heavily worked hillside of Cockshaw where the snow accentuated the contours of the Ayton Banks Alum Works that operated for a mere nine years in the latter…
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Motherly love
Motherly love Motherly love Forget about the brotherly and other-ly love Motherly love is just the thing for you You know your Mothers’ gonna love ya ’til ya don’t know what to do Frank Zappa From the Mother of Invention’s debut album. Not really my music but an apt quote for these heelin’ coos at…
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First Footing
New Year’s Day and back home in the Cleveland Hills after a pre-dawn dash from the Lakes. This from Cockshaw hill above Gribdale Terrace and Howl Road. Roseberry in the distance. A reasonable morning. Cloudy but dry. An old Yorkshire saying is that the weather until March is governed by that on the first three…
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Boxing Day Hunt
The Cleveland Hunt traditionally starts from Great Ayton High Green on Boxing Day. Now I have two issues with fox hunting. Firstly there is much evidence that, in spite of the hunting of animals with dogs having been illegal since 2004, the law is being circumvented by the pretence that hunts are conducted under the…
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Lonsdale Slack
Friluftsliv, a Norwegian philosophy embracing spending time connecting with nature, literally translates as “free air life”. Just being outdoors in the forests and mountains. Even the dense uninspiring commercial forestry plantation on Coate Moor can seem magical given the right lighting. Like this morning, a few minutes after sunrise. Open Space Web-Map builder Code
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Lichtung
Shafts of light falling on a carpet of wood sorrel, a clearing in Slack’s Quarry Wood, a former whinstone quarry. Long gone are the smells and noises of quarrymen. A place now of peace and quiet, a place for contemplation. Heidegger, the German philosopher, likened a clearing such as this to a state of the…
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Cockshaw Quarry
A glorious evening, very autumnal although Autumn is still a week or so away. Cockshaw is a very abused part of the escarpment between Captain Cook’s Monument and Roseberry Topping. The sandstone cap was intensively quarried. Lower down the remains of a clamp, leaching pits and cisterns for the alum industry can be traced, except…