Category: Capt. Cook’s Monument
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The Local Legacy of Capt. James Cook
Well, it’s been a quite a while since I last posted a photo of that obelisk known as Capt. Cook’s Monument, perched ever so ostentatiously upon Easby Moor. A tribute it is to that infamous chap, Captain James Cook, the problematic “discoverer” of Australia, who hailed from the local village of Great Ayton during his…
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With a teachers’ strike likely, it seems timely to point out that exactly 50 years ago today teachers resumed their normal working after a three-month work-to-rule dispute with the local authority
On this day in 1973, the Daily Mirror published interviews with some Teesside pupils: HILARY COX, age 13: “It’s rotten, it’s boring, and my Mam says she’s sick of me going in and out like a yo-yo all day. There’s nothing to do at all. “I’ve been going to all the classes that have been…
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The story of Cleopatra’s Needle’s journey to Britain
The well-known monument to Capt. James Cook was erected in 1827. The design of an obelisk has led some to speculate a masonic connection. But the more probable reasoning was that obelisks were simply in vogue. In that year, Dublin had begun its erection of the Wellington Monument in Phoenix Park to commemorate victories by…
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A day of strange atmospherics
On this day in 2005, at 0601 in the morning, a huge explosion rocked an oil depot in Buncefield near Hemel Hempstead in Hertfordshire. It was the largest in peacetime Europe and the noise is said to have been heard as far away as the Netherlands. I seem to remember people at work saying they…
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An early start
It was dry when I left home but by Gribdale Gate, the wind had picked up and it was beginning to spit, and any thoughts of photography had been forgotten. Still, it was pleasant to see Gribdale empty of cars; apart from two early dog walkers. It’s has always been a popular car park as…
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A brilliant day on Easby Moor for the Cleveland Mountain Rescue Team’s Remembrance Sunday gathering
The gathering took place at the memorial to the aircrew who died when their Lockheed Hudson aircraft crashed into the hill on 11th February 1940. The aircraft took off from Thornaby-on-Tees at 04:10 and failed to gain suffient height due to ice forming on the wings. It clipped the escarpment, ploughing on through a drystone…
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Capt. Cook’s Monument
It’s been quite a few weeks since I last posted a photo of the dear old monument on Easby Moor to Great Ayton’s favourite son. Over the years, it’s been through its trials and tribulations. The originally one was made of wood and erected in 1827 but it caught fire and was replaced by the…
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On Gisborough Moor
With a rather dull view across the patchwork moors of Codhill Heights and Great Ayton Moor to Capt. Cook’s Monument. In the foreground, the triangulation pillar on Gisborough Moor, 324m above sea level. Or 1,063 feet as our esteemed Prime Minister would have it. Or maybe he prefers cubits — a cubit being the distance between…
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Shit Sack Day
Two years ago I posted about Royal Oak Day, 29th May, to commemorate when Charles II returned to London and was restored as King in 1660. On this day, true Royalists wear a sprig of oak leaves in recognition of Charles’s escape by hiding in an oak tree at Boscobel House, Shropshire, after his defeat…
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It can be done …
The relatively small patch of heather moorland around Captain Cook’s Monument has recently been strip mowed. This photo is technically of a strip on Little Ayton Moor, north of the parish boundary wall, but the area surrounding the monument, Easby Moor, also has at least two parallel strips. The moors are technically dry upland heath,…