Category: North York Moors
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In search of prehistoric rock art
What a dreich morning. Low cloud meant it was a day not conducive for photography, so I went to look for some prehistoric rock art on Garfit Gap. Garfit Gap is the col between the Wainstones and Cold Moor and contains many boulders on which with rock art has been identified. Now I’ve looked for…
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Happy Michaelmas Day!
Or Happy Feast of Michael and All Angels, which sounds even more of a mouthful. A day spent In Dove Dale, a National Trust property leading from Dalby Forest. The dale is a peaceful grassy valley with rushy flushes, bracken and scattered trees along a meandering stream. It is not grazed and is therefore sub-optimal…
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Winter is coming
A veil shrouds the ‘Four Sisters’ — Hasty Bank, Cold Moor, Cringle Moor and Carlton Moor. Mornings are getting damper. There’s a chill in the air. Winter is coming. I am half way up Park Nab on the Baysdale Road, killing an hour before the archaeological dig at a medieval chapel at Kildale. Today was…
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Aireyholme Farm, Cliff Rigg and Great Ayton village
Wednesday, the 26th of September, 1917. William Arthur Trembath opens his eyes and blinks as they adjust to the hazy morning sun. It’s silent yet he is vaguely aware all around him is a frenzy of activity. The Battalion is consolidating their newly gained positions, connecting and deepening shell holes to form new trenches. He…
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Mell-suppers and mell-acts, a long lost tradition of the harvest
A fine view of Roseberry and Black Bank. Today is the autumnal equinox and a reminder that from now on the hours of darkness will exceed that of daylight. By now harvest should be largely over. In our modern society harvest passes us by with hardly a notice. The day before yesterday I wrote about…
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Young Ralph Cross
A breather after riding up from Westerdale. Not the highest part of the Moors — that falls to Round Hill on Urra Moor — but it certainly has that feel about it. Young Ralph Cross has stood for centuries guiding and reassuring the weary traveller. Nowadays, most folk don’t stop on the busy Castleton to…
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The Maid of the Golden Shoon
The featured photo shows Turkey Nab overlooking the tiny village of Ingleby Greenhow, Ingleby is the scene of a charming folk tale from the pen of Richard Blakeborough featuring witches, fairies, maidens fair, knights in shining armour, dragons, along with baby snatching and cross dressing, and much, much more if you read between the lines.…
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Not the Queen’s funeral
Plenty of folks taking advantage of the extra bank holiday and preferring not to be glued to the telly watching wall-to-wall coverage of Her Majesty’s funeral. I notice the trig. point hasn’t escaped adornment by Elizabethan themed graffiti. Which places the National Trust with a bit of a dilemma: how long to leave it up.…
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Fryup Dale
Or more strictly, Great Fryup Dale, since the dale is generally said to comprise two parallel steep sided u-shaped valleys: Little and Great Fryup Dale, connected by a col, Fairy Cross Plain. Both dales are broad and flat with steep rims of scrub and patches of ancient deciduous woodland. In searching the history of the…
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Flashback to 1948: ‘Yorkshire dale to begin new life’
Bransdale Eastside and the farmsteads of Smout House (formerly Loft House and now the National Trust’s office and stores), Toad Hole, and Cow Sike. I came across an interesting article in the Yorkshire Post dated 27 November 1948, which gives a very good insight of what life was like in Bransdale in the first half…