Category: North York Moors
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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…
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Since time immemorial, all who have lived within the shadow of Roseberry must must have had a sense of affection to Cleveland’s iconic “mountain”
Thomas Kitchingman Staveley, Lord of the Manor of Newton, went as far as to name his daughter Roseberry. When Archibald Primrose was granted a peerage in Scotland in 1700, he chose the title of Viscount Rosebery, supposedly after “a hill near Archibald’s wife’s estates in Yorkshire“. He continued with the name when he was later…
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A beautiful autumn day, clear and sunny, with light winds and a slight nip in the air
I have had a couple of people say to me recently that “controlled” burning of the moors is now illegal. Well, that’s not quite right. According to Defra the new regulations introduced last year “will prevent the burning of any specified vegetation on areas of deep peat (over 40cm depth) on a Site of Special…
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Roseberry Common ‘omega’ sign
The oak leaf on an ‘omega’ shaped plaque has become the National Trust’s iconic sign since it was designed by Yorkshire artist Joseph Armitage (1880-1945) in 1935. “The oak leaves were chosen as being no less symbolic of England than the more usual lion, and more in keeping with the use of the emblem”. Omega…
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Saw-pit, Middle Heads
One of the books on my bookshelf is “Life and Tradition on The Moorlands of North-East Yorkshire” by Marie Hartley and Joan Ingilby and contains an interesting photo of a saw-pit being used at Middle Heads in Farndale. I thought today I would have a go at finding it. I am a bit hesitant about…
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You never know what the day will bring
It’s almost 50 years since I moved up to North Yorkshire from the Midlands and started my exploration of the North York Moors. I love going ‘off-piste’ and I thought I had explored every path, every sheep track, and every swidden on the Cleveland Hills. But today, on a very familiar patch of heather moor,…
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John Scarth, a “well-to-do” Bransdale farmer
A lovely view of St Nicholas Church appearing through a window in the autumnal canopy from a field near to Bransdale Mill where the National Trust are creating a wildflower meadow. The little church at Cockayne was built about 1800, so it would have been very familiar to John Scarth, a well-to-do farmer who was…