Category: North York Moors

  • Gurnal Dubs

    Gurnal Dubs

    A cracking morning on Potter Fell in the foothills of the Lakes north of Kendal. A quiet area largely ignored by those in a hurry to get into the big fells. A dub is a small pond and there were indeed originally three dubs until Richard Fothergill II built a dam to create the much larger lake of just under eight acres we see today.…

  • Greenhow Bank

    Greenhow Bank

    A sultry evening view towards Botton Head where the forestry plantations are systematically being clear felled. The Ingleby Incline, a former railway incline, can be seen ascending the bank right to left. Greenhow Bank is capped by a series of crags and rock outcrops over a distance of a hundred metres or so. This crag, with…

  • Pond on Great Ayton Moor

    Pond on Great Ayton Moor

    For all the whinging about the British weather there are not many days in the year when I actually end up running in the rain. I did so this morning. With poor visibility I headed up onto Great Ayton Moor intending to look at the heather and ended up by this pond. I’m not sure if it’s natural…

  • Red Barns

    Red Barns

    I read somewhere that if Gertrude Bell had been born a man she would be as well known today as Lawrence of Arabia. Even so a film ‘Queen of the Desert’ has been made of her life played by Nicole Kidman. Writer, traveller and mountaineer, Gertrude survived more than 50 hours on a rope on…

  • Capt.Cook's Monument

    Capt.Cook's Monument

    I recently read an article which suggests a Masonic connection to the obelisk and with the great man himself. Apparently obelisks symbolize the Egyptian sun god Amon Re and its cap  or ‘benben’ is actually a pyramid. Now a pyramid forms the basis of the Freemasonry symbol The Eye of Providence, a symbol which can be seen on the reverse of the Great…

  • Westerdale

    Westerdale

    Better known as the name of the village, on the ridge on the right of the photo, but this upper part of the River Esk is mapped as Westerdale. The ling or heather is in full bloom. From John Breckon Road.

  • Newton Moor

    Newton Moor

    Back home on my home moors and I’m saddened to find the remains of a campfire on Newton Moor which is at the remotest part of the National Trust’s Roseberry Topping property. What makes it even more depressing is that the wooden post to which this sign was fixed has been used for fuel.

  • Caolas Beag

    Caolas Beag

    One of the most memorable sights on the west coast of Scotland is the sunsets. This is from Big Sand near Gairloch across the Caolas Beag, the narrows or straits between Longa Island on the left and the mainland. Although the distance is about one kilometre Caolas Beag translates as small narrows.

  • Tea on the Topping

    Tea on the Topping

    All set up with the kettle on the boil and plenty of cakes for the annual Tea on the Topping fundraising event by the rangers of the National Trust. A bit windy so the summit was abandoned in favour of the relative shelter of the folly.

  • Cairnholy Chambered Cairn

    Cairnholy Chambered Cairn

    One of a pair, 6,000 to 4,000 years old, near Gatehouse of Fleet on the Solway coast. Although very robbed out an excavation was carried out in 1949 when a stone axe of Jadeite was found, a rock originating in the Alps.