Category: Kildale
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Spring has begun its journey
A sneak peek over the wall into the grounds of Kildale Hall. This is always a welcome sight at this time of the year. A reminder that spring is just around the corner. From the photo it looks like it’s the snowdrops that dominate, but actually the yellow aconites were more pronounced. Winter aconites, Evanthis…
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A familiar scene to many …
… least not Cleveland Way walkers heading south to Helmsley. Walkers going clockwise will be trudging up this bank to Coate moor and Capt. Cook’s Monument. Bankside Farm itself probably dates from the 18th-century, while the distant building to the right is the former manager’s house and workshop for the Coate Moor Iron Company. The…
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Ward Nab (aka Cook’s Crags)
Ward Nab on the edge of Coate Moor is much beloved by local climbers who know it simply as Cook’s Crags. It overlooks the sleepy village of Kildale — the dale of Chil — and used to host a medieval market. Even in more recent times it had a pub, a post office, and a…
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One of the opportunities of winter is the reduction in tree cover
The woodland floor becomes airy and light. New vistas are opened up. Climbing up the steep path from the River Leven through Bleach Mill Intake my interest was piqued by a stack of dressed stones in the defile below. Although I don’t think the stones are in their original position they are evidence of the…
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Winter is coming
A veil shrouds the ‘Four Sisters’ — Hasty Bank, Cold Moor, Cringle Moor and Carlton Moor. Mornings are getting damper. There’s a chill in the air. Winter is coming. I am half way up Park Nab on the Baysdale Road, killing an hour before the archaeological dig at a medieval chapel at Kildale. Today was…
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Percy Cross Rigg
Without looking at the map, I would have said the track along Percy Cross Rigg, or to use its Medieval name, Ernaldsti, on its journey south across Great Ayton and Kildale Moors, and on to Westerdale follows a pretty straight route. But this telescopic photo shows just how sinuous it actually is. The name is…
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A view across Kildale to the side valley of Lonsdale.
In the right distance is ‘New Row’, a terrace of six single story cottages built by the Lonsdale Mining Company in 1865-7, and added to by six 2-story houses for the Whinstone miners. In front of New Row is the Kildale Sports Field, newly decked out for the forthcoming football season. In the late 1970s,…
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Was this the site of the stronghold of the de Percys?
On the Ordnance Survey map this raised mound is annotated as a ‘motte‘, a flat-topped mound normally associated with a motte-and-bailey castle. John Walker Ord cites the Elizabethan antiquarian William Camden as being the only mention of a ‘castle’ at Kildale. it is now thought the mound is a naturally occuring knoll and the site…
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Kildale
An autumnal morning. Once the cloud had dissipated, the top of Park Nab opened up a full view of this interesting valley once flooded, dammed up by the Tees ice sheet. The slight high ground on the valley floor to the left is a terminal moraine and the furthest extent of the glacier. Here marks…
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River Leven at Kildale
In spite of yesterday’s rain the River Leven looks very tranquil. Unlike the state it would have been on the 21st July, 1840, when heavy rain caused the Kildale fish pond to burst causing flooding downstream and washing away Kildale Mill and two stone bridges.