Category: Bilsdale
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Chop Gate: Pedlars, Vikings and a Farmer’s Opinion
Chop Gate sits quietly in Bilsdale until the TT roars through and reminds everyone it exists. But the village has a quieter puzzle that never goes away: nobody can agree on what to call it, or what it means. Travel guides and linguists will tell you confidently that it is pronounced “Chop Yat.” The reasoning…
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Lady Day: When England Turned Over a New Leaf
March 25th was not just another date. It was the day England once held its breath, then exhaled. Until 1751, Lady Day was the legal New Year. Winter ended. Debts were called in. Contracts expired. The nation lurched back to life like a cart horse after a long cold stable. Rents fell due, farm tenancies…
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Wath Hill
A view from the rear of Cranimoor, or Cringle Moor as modern maps insist on calling it. Raisdale splits into two narrow arms, held apart by the modest bulk of Wath Hill, a hill so thoroughly “improved” for pasture that every trace of wild moor has been rubbed out. No heather, no grouse. Pheasants aplenty…
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When the Monks Assarted Bilsdale
In windswept Bilsdale, a ring-fence of bank and ditch at Garfitts and a scatter of medieval sherds tell a story not often told. This was not always a quiet dale of lonely farms. For a brief, brittle spell it was a proving ground, a place where organised power tried to turn moor and forest into…
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Billy’s Dyke on the High Moor
Just after the midwinter feast of 1070, William the Conqueror, fresh from Christmas in York, marched north to settle a score. His garrison at Durham had been slaughtered, and he meant to answer blood with fire. What followed was ruin on a grand scale. Villages, farms, whole stretches of countryside were wiped clean, with no…
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The “T” Stones of Bilsdale West Moor
The North York Moors are littered with boundary stones, each one usually stamped with a dutiful little initial, the sort of thing an aristocratic landowner might choose when feeling terribly important. An “M” for Manners, an “F” for Feversham, a “CD” for Charles Duncombe. All very neat, all very tidy. Then you stumble upon a…
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Urra: What’s in a Name?
Urra. A name that sounds as if the wind itself whispered it across the moor. Once, according to Richard Blakeborough, this lonely hamlet in upper Bilsdale had a blacksmith and an inn – the twin hearts of any small community. Now it is little more than a name on a map, clinging to the edge…
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Easterside: Where a German Bomber Crashed
Easterside Hill stands guard over Bilsdale, yet is all too often passed by without a second thought. Perhaps it is too familiar, or perhaps the eye is stolen by the graceful turns of the B1257. Its striking form is no accident. A crown of Oolitic Limestone sits upon Calcareous Grit, itself resting on Oxford Clay.…
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Seave Green: Through the Lens, Again
It is always a letdown to return home thinking the day’s photograph might be worth something, only to discover I have stood in the same spot, pointing the camera in precisely the same direction, years before. So it went with this view of Seave Green in Bilsdale. Today, Seave Green passes for a hamlet, though…
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Jack’s Short Life: From Rural Bilsdale to the Trenches of the Great War
A view from Cold Moor to Garfit Gap. The row of sheds belong to the industrial pheasant rearing farm at Whingroves, a shining example of rural diversification, if one defines success as raising battery-bred birds for folk to shoot. In 1896, however, it was just another typical mixed farm on the North York Moors, run…