Category: North York Moors
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Scarth Wood Moor
Early morning mists dissipate over Scarth Wood moor, a National Trust property near Osmotherley. The clear blue skies soon gave way to Autumn showers.
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Transporter Bridge
A trip into Middlesbrough town and an opportunity to revisit once familiar places along the banks of the Tees. Much has changed, buildings demolished, waste ground landscaped, signposts for footpaths: the England Coast Walk and the Eight Bridges Walk. That’s a new one on me. But some things remain the same. The white horses on the river…
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Seave Green
Blue skies, an inquisitive bullock and the sandstone cottages of Seave Green, an hamlet in upper Bilsdale, make an idyllic scene. A scene which, if the Victorian speculators had had their way would have looked quite different. In 1874 a railway was proposed running down the valley through the fields on the far side of the beck. The railway was to…
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Rowan tree, Lonsdale Quarry
The striking red berries of the Rowan tree stand out against the drab Autumn colours of the moors. The Rowan or Mountain Ash has long been associated with superstition and folklore. In Greek myology the goddess of youth, Hebe, lost her cup of ambrosia, said to rejuvenate youth. It was stolen by demons and the gods sent…
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Urra Moor
A drab misty start to the week with rain threatening. The boundary stones across Urra Moor probably mark the limit of the Feversham estate. Bilsdale below is only just visible.
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Blakey Topping
The story goes that a giant by the name of Wade had an argument with his wife and in a fit of temper he scooped by a handful of earth and threw it at her but missed creating Blakey Topping in the process. And the hole left became the Hole of Horcum. Elgee writing in the 1930s recounts a…
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Brambles
Autumn is rapidly setting in. It’s going to be a good year for Autumn colours. Unless we have storms blowing the turning leaves off. Some bramble leaves are a deep red yet others are still green. Maybe different species. There are plenty of them. 320 at the last count. Off the main drag up to Capt.…
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Scarth Wood Farm
An intriguing building. Named on the modern map, as well as the Ordnance Survey Six Inch 1854 edition, as a farm but I can’t help thinking there is more to it than just a common or garden farmhouse. It is roofed with Welsh slate, a relatively expensive material, compare with the pantile roof of the outbuildings in…
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Birdsfoot Treeroot
A break with tradition. An arty closeup. Had an explore along Black Bank, an area of clear felling on the escarpment of Great Ayton Moor where some crags and boulders have been revealed. Interesting enough but I was fascinated by this tree stump where the bark has worn off to expose knobbly, wavy roots. Reminding me of a bird’s foot. Or…
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White Gill
In the Tabular Hills, limestone country in the southern half of the North York Moors and a view west over the Vale of Mowbray to the Yorkshire Dales, supposedly one of the “finest views in all of England”. White Gill, the stream at the bottom of a deep valley with no name, and downstream, the village of Kepwick.…