Category: Kildale

  • Kildale

    Kildale

    The ‘village green’ at Kildale. Another glorious morning. And Michaelmas day to boot. St Michael’s Day, 29th September, the Feast of Michael and All Angels, one of the traditional four ‘quarter days’ in a year, the other being Lady Day (25th March), Midsummer (24th June), and Christmas (25th December). On these religious festivals, the agricultural…

  • St. Hilda’s Chapel, Kildale

    St. Hilda’s Chapel, Kildale

    My penultimate day at the archaeological dig in Kildale which I have been involved with all summer. The site will soon be winterised until next year. It is thought the stone walls are the remains of a medieval chapel dedicated to St. Hilda, which was located through detective work by members of the Hidden Valleys…

  • Nanny Howe and the Devil’s Court

    Nanny Howe and the Devil’s Court

    A view across Kildale from Park Nab to the densely forested Coate Moor. The highest point towards the left is actually Easby Moor with its monument to Capt. Cook but this story is about a Bronze Age barrow hidden amongst the trees on Coate Moor called Nanny Howe. It’s a story about a witch and…

  • The Park, Kildale Moor

    The Park, Kildale Moor

    A view south along the Cleveland Hills on the meteorological first day of Autumn.  Corrugated skies of grey. The heather is just about to change, not many more days when there is a hint of the purple. This moorland was once part of a medieval deer park of the Percys of Kildale. Just out of…

  • Gin House, Park Farm, Kildale

    Gin House, Park Farm, Kildale

    Horses were once a traditional source of power on the farm and in industry. Threshing, milling, pumping, lifting, sawing, churning would all be done under horse-power. On farms, the ‘gin’, a shortening of the word ‘engine’, was often undercover in a separate building attached to the barn called a ‘gin-house’, and in many cases these…

  • The Pale

    The Pale

    I’m always on the look out for an out of the way viewpoint. I discovered this by a short walk across the heather from a bike ride up to Percy Rigg. It shows the full extent of Lonsdale, from its head at Gribdale gate to its confluence with Kildale and portrays a microcosm of history.…

  • The manuring of Kildale’s fields

    The manuring of Kildale’s fields

    The lush fields of the Kildale are the result of generations of cultivation. Under his tenancy agreement, the farmer at Percy Rigg Farm (or Viewley Hill Farm as it was formerly known in the 19th-century) would have been under certain conditions to maintain and improve his fields. He “will lay and spread … in each…

  • Kildale

    Kildale

    There is a cracking photo of Kildale taken by Michael Heavisides in 1903, taken from almost this same spot, perhaps closer to the middle of the road. Much safer in those days. A group of four men stand casually chatting outside the “Blacksmith’s Arms”, the first building in the range. There is bunting hanging between…

  • Holly Tree Wall

    Holly Tree Wall

    That holly tree must be at least 35 years old. I remember it being there when I climbed a route on this face on Park Nab. The large flat field left of centre is a former cricket pitch. The Kildale Cricket Club was founded in 1902, and this field was offered to the club by…

  • The Cleveland Hills from below Park Nab

    The Cleveland Hills from below Park Nab

    An interesting day spent helping on an archaeological dig searching for the long lost chapel of St. Hilda in Kildale. Watch this space. A dearth of photographic opportunities though. This is the Cleveland Hills from below Park Nab. The farm is Low Farm. The hedgerow this side of the rape field, Dundale Beck, forms the…