Category: Roseberry Topping
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Nanny Newgill, the Broughton Witch
On a drizzly Cold Moor this morning I was reminded of one of Richard Blakeborough’s tales about a witch who lived at Broughton. That’s Great Broughton on the Cleveland plain below, just left of centre. The peak of Roseberry Topping is on the skyline just right of centre. Blakeborough’s story appeared in the Northern Weekly…
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With the cloud hiding most signs of modernity — a notable exception being the well-worn paths — I can’t help thinking that this a timeless view
It is certainly a view the young James Cook would have recognised while he lived with his family at Aireyholme Farm. Cook of course would go on to achieve fame with his navigational exploits in the Pacific, beginning with his trip to Tahiti to observe of the Transit of Venus. He left England aboard the…
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There is nothing as exhilerating as being out in the snow
Well ok, it was only a smattering, a ‘greymin‘, barely enough to cover the rocks on this Bronze Age tumulus on Great Ayton Moor. ” ‘Twas frost and thro leet wid a o’ greymin snaw“. On my walk up Roseberry through Newton Wood, the feathery pruinescence of the dead bracken fonds meant I was not…
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The talus of sandstone boulders at the foot of Roseberry Topping resulting from the landslip that occured in 1912
A scene of rocky confusion. ‘Talus’ is a strange word. It’s a word I actually find uncomfortable to use, long past its sell-by date. In this context it means the slope of rock debris but an alternative meaning is an anklebone. Each derives from different Latin words. Until 1830 talus was more often referred to…
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It took me a while to realise that something was missing from this pastoral scene
Normally the tranquility would have been broken by the hissing of the resident flock of geese irritated by my presence here at Aireyholme Farm. But today there was silence. And back home, it came to me: the geese are under lock down, housed indoors by order of DEFRA to prevent the spread of the avian…
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The ever changing faces of Roseberry trig. point
It was given a fresh coat of paint in July if I recall. The stencils appeared soon after the Queen’s death and were left, out of respect. But graffiti artists do not show the same respect. So, weather permitting, the trig. point will be getting spruced up. A lovely clean canvas. Since last week a…
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Concerning the ghost of a man of Ayton in Cleveland
I’ve been saving this little story up hoping to come across a suitable image to accompany it. It came back to me today, and finding inspiration, I have given up waiting. But first, the featured image is, of course, of Roseberry Topping, “t’ biggest hill i’ all Yorkshur” that overlooks the village of Great Ayton.…
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A brilliant day on Easby Moor for the Cleveland Mountain Rescue Team’s Remembrance Sunday gathering
The gathering took place at the memorial to the aircrew who died when their Lockheed Hudson aircraft crashed into the hill on 11th February 1940. The aircraft took off from Thornaby-on-Tees at 04:10 and failed to gain suffient height due to ice forming on the wings. It clipped the escarpment, ploughing on through a drystone…
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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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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…