Category: North York Moors
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Thursdays with the National Trust but a photograph from yesterday
Thursdays usually find me as an eager volunteer with the National Trust, and today I was at one of their tenanted farms, located in the vicinity of the Bridestones. The job: the Herculean task of repairing the ailing state of the fence boundary between a small patch of woodland and a field containing some sort…
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Park Nab’s Holly Tree Wall
This is Park Nab in Kildale — a sandstone crag that is one of the prime venues for climbing in North Yorkshire. Now, I’d never go so far as to call myself a “climber,” yet I’ve dabbled in the sport, to an extent. Amongst my successes is a route aptly named: “Twin Cracks,” finishing its…
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Prehistoric Rock Art at Garfit Gap
Garfit Gap, that well-known col on the Cleveland Way nestling between Cold Moor and the Wainstones, is one of the four natural routes climbing up from the Cleveland Plain, southward over the barrier of Cleveland Hills into Bilsdale. Each route involves a formidable climb. Nowadays, though, the Clay Bank route, aided and abetted by the…
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Saved by a pigeon
With Roseberry wrapped in a misty shawl, and rain pouring its way down, I kitted up for a run up the Topping – a dash, more than my usual stroll. Well, maybe not a dash. Those days are long gone. It wasn’t exactly a day for photography, all grey and soggy. But, just then, a…
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Heather’s Purple Dance with Golden Grass
Apart from the swathes of purple heather, there is another colour that resonates with me and epitomises the moors at this time of the year: the golden brown of grasses. These strands of gold flourish abundantly upon the ancient swiddens, gently swaying in the breeze and contrasting with the purple that’s nothing short of mesmerising.…
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“The Glorious Twelfth” — A Tradition Under Scrutiny
The moors were eerily silent this morning, a stark departure from the cacophony of gunfire that might be expected to reverberate across the heather today. Not a single report echoed in the air, just an eerie silence that draped the landscape like a shroud. Even the normally noisy grouse seem to sense an awareness of…
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From Barbados to Morrisons—The history of Thimbleby and its owners
The agricultural landscape of the Vale of Mowbray stretches across to the Dales , a view made visible through the recent felling of what was called ‘The Big Wood’ on the Thimbleby Estate. This shooting estate, its boundaries marked by imposing notices, guards its rights with a vigilance matched only by its size. There, off-centre,…
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Beneath Billowing Clouds: A Farmer’s Tale of Timing and Toil
In the rolling pasture that stretches down to the sprawling Dalby Forest, a farmer toils under a billowy sky. In this photograph, from near Low Pasture Farm, he is seizing a precious respite from the recent rain to harvest the bounty of his fields. In this delicate dance with nature, timing is everything. A mere…
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The carved stone of the Park Pale
Someone asked me to show them a carved stone on Warren Moor. Many years have slipped by since I last saw it, so I figured it’d be wise to retrace my steps and locate it again – can’t have my memory playing tricks on me. The stone didn’t put up much of a fight to…
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From beacons to buried treasure—Tales of Drake Howe
At the highest point of Cringle Moor’s flat summit is a Bronze Age round barrow named Drake Howe. A cairn overlooks the hollow left by Victorian antiquarians in this ancient monument. “Howe,” a term with a Scandinavian etymology, means a mound. But “Drake,” is that a name that carries a folk memory recalling the age-old…