Category: North York Moors

  • 60’s Rubbish Take 2

    60’s Rubbish Take 2

    A revisit to the 60’s rubbish tip exposed at Rye Hill in Great Ayton. This old Bird’s Eye bag for Corn on the Cob was floating about on the surface. ¾lb for 3/6. That’s 17½ pence in new money. Decimalisation took place in February 1971 so it’s at least that old. But what really hits…

  • The Summerhouse

    The Summerhouse

    An early morning view of the Summerhouse, presided over by Roseberry since it was built over 250 years ago. It once had a white finish and plastered inside with a suspended ceiling although these had probably disappeared when it was used as a billet for local militia manning the beacon on Roseberry summit during the…

  • West Gill in North Dale

    West Gill in North Dale

    Reading the depressing news that a bird of prey had been shot in Rosedale earlier this week reminded me to head down that way. No precise location was given in the report so a toss of the dice saw me in West Gill, North Dale, a deep unfrequented gash in Rosedale Moor. A cracking day…

  • Autumn’s coming

    Autumn’s coming

    A few days to go before the start of Autumn, and at 5 o’clock it feels like it has already arrived. Dull, muted colours with rapidly failing light. Open Space Web-Map builder Code

  • Little Fryup Dale

    Little Fryup Dale

    A glorious evening. The west side of Little Fryup Dale basks in the last rays of the setting sun. The name Fryup derives from the Anglo-Saxon pagan goddess Frige and hop meaning a small valley (link). So Little Fryup Dale means the little dale of the small valley of Frige. This double descriptive name is…

  • A fast descent of Cringley End

    A fast descent of Cringley End

    Headed up to Lord Stones Country Park to take a look at a mountain bike race being held up there. The race comprised five timed downhill sections separated by untimed uphill routes, climbed at leisure. About 35km total distance. One of the downhill sections descended Cringley End, an old name for the ‘nose’ of Cringle…

  • Eskdale’s stolen water

    Eskdale’s stolen water

    The sandstone boundary stone on the left is inscribed “RC” the initials of Robert Chaloner, the 19th-century landowner and lord of the manor of Guisborough, but it is the waterlogged ditch in front which took my interest today. Mapped as “The Race” it is a leat semi-circumventing Hutton Moor, capturing the water runoff from draining…

  • Cockshaw Quarry

    Cockshaw Quarry

    A glorious evening, very autumnal although Autumn is still a week or so away. Cockshaw is a very abused part of the escarpment between Captain Cook’s Monument and Roseberry Topping. The sandstone cap was intensively quarried. Lower down the remains of a clamp, leaching pits and cisterns for the alum industry can be traced, except…

  • Leven Gorge

    Leven Gorge

    Upstream from Great Ayton and Easby the River Leven is confined by a narrow gorge as it flows through Mill Bank Wood. A few hundred metres downstream from here, where the gorge widens a little, is the site of a bleach and fulling mill that can be dated back to the 14th century. In the…

  • Holy Well Gill

    Holy Well Gill

    It must have needed a torrent of water to have carved this gill on Pamperdale Moor near Osmotherley. Certainly not water from the spring mapped as Holy Well and situated way down the gill not far to its junction with Crabdale Beck. The “spring” in the photo, higher up, doesn’t even qualify with an Ordnance…