Category: North York Moors
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Stebynthwayte
A wet stroll. A very wet stroll. First proper rain I’ve been caught out in for months. Headed over to Square Corner and into upper Ryedale. I had in mind to revisit a peculiar arrangement of standing stones at the old farmstead of High Cote. There are seven in this cluster including the prone one,…
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Cockayne
Bransdale is the home to 25 families of whom 9 make their living from farming. The largest community is Cockayne, at the head of the dale, but describing it as a hamlet might be overgenerous. A few houses and the simple church is there, dedicated to St. Nicholas. The datestone says 1886 but the architecual…
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Hawthorn hedgerow
And so into October, the eighth month of the old ten-month Roman calendar. Eventually, they cottoned on that having 60 days of winter “monthless” wasn’t such a good ideal so January and February were added and October became the tenth month. And one of the delights of October is that the countryside still retains some…
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Dale Head Bee Boles
Do other animals exhibit man’s craving for sweetness? I guess bears do, or at least Winnie the Pooh does. It is said that the refinement of sugar originated in the Indian subcontinent in prehistory. The Crusaders brought it back to Europe and but it wasn’t until the development of sugar plantations in the West Indies…
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Roseberry Sunset
Such a cracking sunset last night that I had another evening stroll. An online ephemeris tells me the sun will set at 269.4°, pretty close to due west. Not surprising when you think about it, just two days after the Autumn equinox. And it just so happens that Roseberry Topping is a smidgen off due…
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Upper Ryedale
Compared to other moorland dales, such as Bilsdale, Farndale and Bransdale, the valley of the upper River Rye is relatively infertile. The river has not eroded through the sandstones to reveal the underlying shales and the broad fertile valley bottoms of these other dales are missing. Instead, there are rarely more than two fields either…
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View from the Cheshire Stone
And a fine view it is on a lovely morning. So easy to pooh-pooh the dire weather forecast. The large basin on the flat sandstone top does not look natural but no doubt it is. And judging by the rate of erosion of prehistoric rock art on sandstone boulders elsewhere on the North York Moors…
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Wesleyan Chapel, Bransdale
Since the Elizabethan Religious Settlement in the late 1550s, the Church of England had been the official church in England. By the 18th-century new dissenting religious societies had begun to emerge who refused to adopt Anglican principles and practices. John Wesley, an Anglican priest, with his brother Charles led a Protestant evangelical revival. He began…
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Boundary stone, Ryston Bank
Or perhaps better known as Newton Moor. The boundary stone is inscribed “T.K.S. 1815” and was erected by Thomas Kitchingham Staveley, the Lord of the Manor of Newton under Roseberry when the moor was enclosed. Interestingly towards the end of his life Staveley lived in Old Sleningford Hall, near Ripon, but named his eldest daughter…
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Blue-bores over Lonsdale
There’s about enough blue in the sky for a Dutchman’s pocket handkerchief or to patch a pair of sailor’s trousers. A Scotsman might say they’re blue-bores, glimmers of hope that the darkness will give way. Oh, I do like that turn of phrase, but can’t get out of my mind a motorway services just off…