Category: Roseberry Topping
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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 Lancashire seems to have claimed the monopoly for this cake which originally made of unfermented dough — chiefly meals of rye, barley and pea, mixed with milk or water— rolled very thin, and baked hard in the oven.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…
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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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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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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…