Category: North York Moors
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Winter Colour beyond Gribdale Gate
A photograph dominated by bracken in its dry, reddish-brown winter state. From Gribdale Gate, the narrow road winds down beside the beck which marks the parish boundary between Great Ayton and Kildale. In the shadowed south side of the dale, the conifers of Coate Moor plantation rule. This abundance of bracken across the northern slope…
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The Tofts and the Wandels: Echoes of the Deserted Medieval Village of Danby
One of the most striking features of Danby Dale is its parish church, standing rather alone about three kilometres from the present village. Castleton and Ainthorpe sit a little closer, yet the church remains a solitary figure in the landscape. In the photograph, it can be seen just to the right of centre, north of…
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Little Roseberry and an Echo of Old Norse
From this viewpoint on Ryston Bank the knoll of Little Roseberry takes on a presence rather more commanding than its shy appearance on the O.S. Map, where it is denied even a ring contour. If the name Roseberry grew out of âOthenesbergâ, the Old Norse for Odinâs Hill, it seems a touch peculiar that its…
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Gallow How: Where Danby Meets Westerdale
On Thursday the first of August 1907, Danby staged its customary âRiding the Boundaryâ, a grand ritual meant to affirm the limits of the Manor, and by extension the Parish, while also paying annual homage to the Lord of the Manor, Hugh Richard, Viscount Downe. The bailiff opened the day with a ringing âOyez, Oyez,…
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Snow on the Ruins of Cote Garth
The ruined farms hidden beneath the forestry east of Cod Beck Reservoir sit like half-forgotten whispers of a tougher age. Among them, Cote Garth stands out, its broken walls sharp against the last scraps of the recent snowfall, as though the land itself is determined to remind us that someone once fought wind, rain and…
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Solitude on Roseberry
The summit of Roseberry lay in an uncanny hush this morning, hidden beneath a dense veil of cloud that turned the familiar rocks into something resembling a far-off alpine mountain. The first snow of winter was still drifting down in slow, wavering flakes, a little damp but enthralling nonetheless. The whole scene felt charged with…
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Coate Moor, Larches
A view from the top of Coate Moor towards the head of Kildale, an obsequent valley biting back into the Cleveland escarpment. The glacial upheaval forced the River Leven to scour a narrow gorge through the shales and sandstones below Coate Moor. I have posted about this before. But Kildale has another, somewhat obscure, point…
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God Rays over Ayton Banks
On Roseberry this morning, a well-built young chap, kitted out as if he had sprinted straight from a gym in Middlesbrough, greeted me with a cheery âAarite, lad? Beautiful up âere today, init? Better than last Mondee, eh?â. His words rather floored me, not only for his unexpected use of âbeautifulâ but because I would…
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Toad in the Hole
How thoughtful the keepers appear to be, fashioning what looks like a charming wildlife pond in the middle of the grouse moor. A touching gesture, if one overlooks the small detail that this idyllic pool is also a shooting butt where folk crouch, lie in wait, and unleash a storm of shot at birds driven…
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The Bottom End of Castleton, Where a Door ClosedâŠ
I had been leafing through Joseph Fordâs âSome Reminiscences and Folk Lore of Danby Parish and Districtâ, when one small passage stopped me in my tracks. Ford described the steady trickle of those who slipped away from the Esk Valley in the nineteenth century, chasing whispers of a new life across the ocean. Among them…