Category: Roseberry Topping
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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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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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Powder House at Roseberry Mines
Had a wander down to the old Powder House to see how it’s faring. The pointing applied to conserve the gable wall facing Roseberry looks as though it’s doing its job. The rest of the stone walls, reduced to a few courses, are grassing over. The tramway down is a jungle of bracken. At this…
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The foothills of Eston Moor
I’d like to say that it was the two small hills across the vale of Cleveland caught my attention, but it was actually the two cols; cols through which the roads of Ormesby Bank and Flatts Lane pass. The hills though — but perhaps ‘knoll‘ is a better word, ‘hill‘ sounds much too lofty — …
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Ground hugging mist slowly dissipating as the day warms
Roseberry was busy this morning. Along with the usual Sunday climbers, there was an abseil down the rock face going on and runners in the ‘Hanging Stone Leap‘ race. It was the 31st running of the event, although the inaugural race was run in 1988. So there’s been a bit of a gap. Today’s race…
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Tea on the Topping
From 2009, until Covid came along, the National Trust held their ‘Tea on the Topping’ event on the summit of Roseberry Topping on the first Sunday in August. Hot and cold drinks and homemade cakes, baked by staff and volunteers were sold in a pop-up tea room, everything including crockery, tables, boilers, gas bottles and…
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Roseberry Summit
A rather unusual view of the summit crag, the result of playing with a GoPro on a selfie-stick. The rock face is not as vertical as I remember but that may be due to an optical illusion due to the wide angle lens. The sandstone crag looks good but is considered unstable by the climbing fraternity.…
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Roseberry Well
I moved up to the Cleveland area in the Autumn of 1973 and I’ve been climbing Roseberry on a regular basis every since. It’s my patch. And I thought I knew every nook and cranny. I knew about Roseberry Well, where the young Prince Oswy is said to have drowned having been taken to the…
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Top of Brant Gate
I learnt the other day of the Old Norse word ‘brantr‘ meaning steep, although it’s unattested and has been ‘reconstructed’ from the Old Icelandic and Old Norwegian form ‘brattr‘. I guess this means that it’s a bit of a guess. However, I read also that ‘brant‘ is actually a Cleveland dialect word for steep, and…
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Happy days are here again
🎶Happy days are here again The skies above are clear again So let’s sing a song of cheer again Happy times, happy nights Happy days are here again🎶 Quiz question: who was the Britain’s worst prime Minister? I’ll give you a clue: he was educated at both Eton and Oxford. The answer is Sir Anthony…