Category: Guisborough
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Highcliff Nab
“Overhanging the romantic and picturesque vale of Gisborough, a bold prominent rock rears its reverend head, hoary with mosses and lichens, and rent into vast chasms by the storms and tempests of centuries. It is skirted to the north with rich plantations of fir and venerable forests of oak; towards the south it is surrounded…
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Former workshops and stables, Belmont Ironstone mine
Around the back of the impressive range of buildings used for stabling the ponies that were used underground in the Belmont Ironstone Mine. They are probably the best-preserved surface remains of mine buildings in Cleveland and have found use once again for stables. In the 1970s I remember them being used for housing pigs. Or…
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Belmont Ironstone Mine
The drift entrance to the mine which operated between 1907-1931 although no ore was extracted after 1921. It has been deliberately blocked for public safety. The brick building behind is an electrical sub-station and probably dates from 1914 when an electric sirocco fan was installed to replace the old method of ventilation by lighting a…
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Cleveland Way at Codhill Plantation
Looking down the Cleveland Way towards the shallow col at the top of Codhill Slack or as Kendall referred to it as Bold Venture Channel. Percy Fry Kendall was Professor of Geology at the University of Leeds from 1904 to 1922 and investigated the glaciation of the North York Moors. He concluded that a lake…
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Skinningrove’s Greatest Showman
With a theme of “Skinningrove’s Greatest Showman”, the final touches are being made to Skinningrove’s enormous bonfire. A tribute to a 19th-century local miner, Henry Cooper, “The Yorkshire Giant – Tallest Man in the World”, who travelled across America with P. T. Barnum’s Travelling Show. At eight and a half feet tall, Cooper was actually…
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Hutton Lowcross Woods
The autumnal colours are really striking at the moment. I have always known these as Hutton Lowcross Woods. The Ordnance Survey map says so. But Forest England refers to all the contiguous woods from Roseberry Common to Slapewath as Guisborough Forest. They form a backdrop to the town of Guisborough, the “ancient capital of Cleveland”.…
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Course of the old Middlesbrough and Guisborough Railway
The Pinchinthorpe Walkway and Visitor Centre, on the route of the old Middlesbrough and Guisborough Railway. The carriage is not authentic and is a recent purchase for use as an outdoor classroom. The Middlesbrough and Guisborough Railway was built in 1853 to serve the ironstone mines at Codhill owned by Joseph Whitwell Pease, a leading…
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Finally some sunshine
A week dominated by weather fronts sweeping across the country and where the mornings have become distinctly more autumnal. Nice to have some sunshine and clarity this morning then. This is a view north by northeast from Hutton Moor over Guisborough towards Redcar and the North Sea. On the right is Beacon Moor and Errington…
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Blue Lake
Originally known as Hanging Stone Dam it became known as Blue Lake because of the blueish tinge it had from salts washing out of the alum shales. But after a day’s rain, there was no sign of any blue tonight. It was built in 1880 by Sir Joseph Whitwell Pease to provide water power for…
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Powder House, Belmont Ironstone Mine
The climb up Highcliff Nab from Hunter Hill Farm used to be one of my regular routes, but I rarely get that way much now, so I was surprised to see how much clear felling of Guisborough Wood has been done, with I guess more to follow. I remember this heavily reinforced concrete bunker being…