Category: North York Moors
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Monument Mine
A wet day so keeping it close with an exploration of the ironstone mine below Capt. Cook’s Monument. Winter is the best time for viewing the remains, before the brambles and gorse run riot. The featured image is an overview of the site. It’s been taken from approximately above what would have been one of…
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Haswell’s Hut
Dull, overcast, and menacing rain. The blue skies over a snow blanketed moors seem an age ago. ‘Haswell’s Hut (Site of)’ is a feature named on the 1856 Ordnance Survey map that has intrigued me for some time. It is shown as just south of the Spot Height of 714 feet and east of the…
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Edward Jenner, the pioneer of the smallpox vaccine
Today’s photo is of Ward Nab, or Cook’s Crags, the name by which the climbers know it. It’s on the southern tip of Easby Moor. A completely unrelated fact is that today in 1823 Edward Jenner, the pioneer of the smallpox vaccine, died. He has been referred to as the ‘Father of Immunology’ whose work…
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Last night, Hrímfaxi passed by, covering the ground with his spittle
I hope you are sufficiently replete after your haggis suppers with neeps and tatties. Happy Burns’ Night and all that; this the 262nd anniversary of the birth of Scotland’s national bard. I ended up today on Great Ayton Moor, the round cairn sprayed white with a featherlike hoar frost, a frost that forms when water…
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Just off the Baysdale road is an unfinished millstone
One face has been dressed as had the circumferential edge. I guess the plan was to flip it and then work on the underside face. But why and when was it abandoned? The obvious destination would have been one of the two mills at Kildale. Just before the River Leven leaves the parish boundary in…
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Ever felt you’re being looked at?
I can across these two beauties today near Easby. I think there’re Kerry Hill sheep which originated from Kerry in Powys, Wales. I just love the distinct black patches over the eyes. On this day in 2013, Ed Miliband clashed with David Cameron in Prime Minister’s Questions. Cameron had said the Conservatives would seek to…
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There’s some good snow drifts on Carr Ridge …
… on the way up to Urra Moor. Solid enough to bare my weight … almost. It was fun until the crust gives way and I end up with a face plant. The ruined dry-stone wall marks the boundary between the parishes of Bilsdale Midcable and Ingleby Greenhow and a dressed stone declares the land…
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St. Agnes’s Day
Storm Christoph slashed its tail last night as it passed over to the North Sea. I think we got off lightly although the village flood defences kicked in. The rain last evening had turned to snow sometime during the night. Today is the feast day of St. Agnes. She is the patron saint of chastity,…
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Turkey Nab
I’ve just watched the inauguration of Joe Biden as the 46th President of the USA, the first time I’ve ever watched such a ceremony. I now reside in a feeling of immense relief. Both America and ourselves take pride in our liberal democracies. But there are huge idiosyncrasies on both sides. Our unelected House of…
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The Bones of Winter
I don’t know where that phrase comes from but I do like it. The snow has now lost its magic, just the skeleton left. The compacted snow on the paths and tracks are lethal. Another familiar feature today for the main photo, the WW2 control bunker associated with the bombing decoy designed to deflect enemy…