Category: Bilsdale
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Just another dreich day
This is descending into Raisdale from the col with Scugdale. Just beyond the tree, the track becomes a well-defined holloway called Mill Lane. It used to be a ‘green lane’ and popular with off-road motorcyclists and motorists and was suffering from horrendous erosion. But, since downgraded to a Public Bridleway, it has recovered nicely, although…
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View from the top of Newgate Bank
Bilsdale directly below me, Hawnby and Ryedale in the distance separated by the hump of Easterside. A lovely day for a bike ride, plenty of apricity. It’s Mischief Night. At least it was when I was a kid, growing up in the 50s and 60s. The day before Bonfire Night. None of this Halloween plastic…
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Bilsdale from Cold Moor
An out and back run along the Cold Moor ridge giving a super view of Bilsdale. If the proposal for The Ingleby, Bilsdale and Helmsley Railway had come to fruition the far side of the dale would have been forever scarred. The railway would have joined the North Eastern Railway at Ingleby station and tunnel…
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Turf Stone
On Bildsdale Moor West near Wether Hill. I haven’t been up here, certainly since lockdown. But not much to see as a blanket of wet cloud hung over the moor. Howes and boundary stones would provide photographic interest today. The Bilsdale Turf Stones are a series of eight stones, all inscribed with a ‘T’, 50…
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Bilsdale
Upper Bilsdale, the dale of William the Bastard so the legend goes who became lost during his harrying of the North. The nearest farm is Whingroves with its inbye fields completely given over to the mass production of pheasant chicks. Inbye land is the most productive on an upland farm, often the closest to the…
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Bilsdale sunset
A twilight navigation event. Such a great evening to be out on the moors. And for today’s completely irrelevant fact, it was on this day in 1629 that the Speaker of the House of Commons, Sir John Finch, tried to adjourn the House of Commons on the orders of King Charles I. He was held…
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If the sun smiles on St. Eulalie’s day, …
My reprint of an 1869 book, “Weather Lore” by R. Inwards says that today, 12th February is St. Eulalie’s day. But who was St. Eulalie? St. Eulalie is included in lots of French commune names and the saying quoted is from the French. Now saints are not my thing so I have only made a…
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Bilsdale from Hasty Bank
One of those magic moments. A shaft of sunlight on an otherwise dull, drizzly, blustery day, picking out the old jet workings of Bilsdale. I was contouring around Hasty Bank looking down the dale, supposedly named after William the Conqueror found himself lost in a storm but more likely derived from a Dane named Bildr,…
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Nab End Moor
It’s been a while since I popped into Tripsdale, a wonderful remote valley though a lack of paths and a dense covering of bracken made a crossing exhausting. There’s a lot of water around, becks are full. Mist clung in the valleys but blue skies broke out on the tops. This is Nab End Moor…
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Green Howe
Go to almost anywhere on the North York Moors and somewhere on the skyline there will be at least one round barrow. More likely you will be able to spot a dozen or so. The archaeologists tell us 541 of them have been recorded. Marked in Gothic script on Ordnance Survey maps as ‘tumulus’ or…