Category: North York Moors
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Super autumnal lighting before what seems like an impending storm
But although it turned dark and winding with a bit of a drizzle I managed to get back to the car dry. I am on Cringle Moor, or Cringley Moor as it used to be called. This was pronounced in the vernacular ‘Creenay‘, which I guess why it was often written as Cranimoor. According to…
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Today is Tharcake Monday
In the Northern counties, the first Monday after Halloween is Tharcake Monday. Lancashire seems to have claimed the monopoly for this cake which originally made of unfermented dough — chiefly meals of rye, barley and pea, mixed with milk or water— rolled very thin, and baked hard in the oven. But the tradition is also…
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Basking in the morning sun but to the south-east a cloud bank hangs over Commondale Moor
Or is it a mist bank? I suppose a walker on Commondale Moor will think he’s in mist or fog or if he’s a local of more mature years, a ‘roke‘. There is no difference really. Both are created when the air becomes saturated and water vapour condenses to form droplets that hang in the…
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Cheshire Stone
On the lip of Urra Moor, overlooking the village of Urra. I wonder what came first: the moor or the village? It is said the name might derive from the Norse ‘haugr‘ meaning a hill. Or it could from the Old English word for dirty — ‘horheht‘/’horhig‘/’horuweg‘ — apparently Try speaking the words without pronouncing…
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Dry hedging in Newton Wood, two years on
Volunteering with the National Trust in Newton Wood. Two years on the dry hedges built to allow the regrowth of the woodland floor seemed to have done their job, but were looking tied. So the task today was to rejuvenate the hedges, and extend then to discourage visitors from using the erosion gulley. Dry (or…
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Hutton Hall
This building has always intrigued me. Sited at the east end of the long tapering village green of Hutton Rudby, it was at one time seat of the Lord of the Manor of Hutton although it was split into two dwellings soon after 1947. While the whole building is Grade II listed, it is the…
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The Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill 2022
So a new PM is inflicted upon us. One part of this government’s growth agenda was the ditching of environmental protections. So far there has been no indication of any reversal of this agenda with the coronation of the new PM. On the day when fracking was being debated in Parliament ‘The Retained EU Law…
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Old hedgerow, Airy Holme
A few scraggy hawthorn trees. A relic of an old hedgerow. The lower branches have been well browsed by sheep. A boundary is shown on the Ordnance Survey Six-Inch map of 1856. It is commonly believed that the age of a hedge can be estimated by counting the number of species in it. True, the longer…
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“Demolished Oil Rig”
The North York Moors Historic Environment Record describes these concrete foundations at Arnsgill Head as a “Demolished Oil Rig”. I think it is more likely to be the remains of a 1944 test borehole — no doubt financed by the anticipation of the eventual commercial exploitation of any resources found. The geological survey is hard…
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For a week so Roseberry summit has been home to a handful of Snowflakes or Snow buntings
A dreich day, “Roseberrye Toppinge weares a cappe“, so a photo from yesterday. For a week so Roseberry summit has been home to a handful of Snowflakes or Snow buntings, to use their more common name. Canny little birds which seem to find pleasure in teasing you — flying off a couple of yards or…