Category: North York Moors
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Bankside Farm
A bit of a ‘lucky dip’ walk today. Generally dull and gloomy, with the occasional brief sunny spell. One such spell occurred when I was climbing out of Kildale towards Capt. Cook’s Monument on the Cleveland Way. Above the pasture field known as Ley Close, Bankside Farm and its neighbour Bankside Cottage reflected the apricity.…
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Now that’s what I call a green lane …
… but not what most folks usually associate with the term, an off-road route for motorbikes and 4wd vehicles. Actually, the term ‘green lane’ has no legal significance. An unsurfaced route for vehicles would be a ‘byway open to all traffic’ or a BOAT. This is, in fact, a Public Bridleway providing access rights for…
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Sandbeds Plantation
There’s something about a beech woodland is that is magical. Strong low sunshine creating long shadows on a winter carpet of leaves. I know this is not a natural landscape, Sandbeds Plantation above the village of Kildale below Coate Moor. The uniformity of the elegant trunks is a giveaway, probably planted sometime in the late…
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Roseberry and the Covid tiers
FaceBook is buzzing. The local BBC has reported that “while part [of Roseberry Topping] is in Redcar and Cleveland, subject to the tier three restrictions, its peak is in Hambleton in tier two” and folk have really got themselves into a tizzy. The broadcaster had picked up a story from Teesside Live which also headlined…
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Otter Hills, Westerdale
I never know what’s the proper name for this dale. It’s the dale of Tower Beck which becomes Whyett Beck before its confluence with the River Esk which takes the name Westerdale up to the river’s source in the Esklets. Yet if you follow Tower Beck upstream to its source just below Young Ralph Cross…
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Odin’s dark side
What’s the time? Half-past Snow Hall Farm, it must be 09:32 precisely. Odin’s brother, Loki, the trickster, was considered to be the dark side of Odin, his sinister shadow. Perhaps Odin’s hill as a gnomon points to Loki, constantly shifting. And so, into December, the final month of this tumultuous year. Originally the tenth month…
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A Modest Proposal
Warning satire alert. I came across an 18th-century essay yesterday by the Jonathon Swift, best known as the author of Gulliver’s Travels. It hails with the grand title of: A Modest Proposal For preventing the Children of Poor People From being a Burthen to Their Parents or Country, and For making them Beneficial to the…
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Incline Top
My morning constitutional today featured a one way run from Bank Foot to Clay Bank over Urra Moor. And to save a bit of time I used the old railway incline to ascend to the moor top. I’d forgotten how much of a slog it is. Nowadays, I am, more often than not, descending on…
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Boundary Stone, Great Ayton Moor
The sun was shining on Great Ayton Moor this morning through a skylight in the cloud. North, south, east and west, there were banks of broody grey cloud. It looked like rain was falling to the north. I am at the highest point, 318 metres above sea level. A 19th-century boundary stone tops the ‘summit’.…
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Cass Rock Gate
I thought a couple of intriguing features on the 1853 Ordnance Survey map were worth a visit, to see if there are any signs remaining. Both are still recorded on the latest online mapping but I wonder if they have been merely been carried forward without actually resurveying. The first is ‘South Stone’, deep in…