Category: Roseberry Topping
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Social distancing on Roseberry
Should I feel guilty? On the one hand, we have our snollygoster of a Prime Minister saying that it is OK to go out for exercise (not that I would necessarily believe anything he says); silence (as of today) of all official advice from the Government and the NHS on being out in the countryside;…
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Site of Summerhill Farm
In 1658 John Coulson, lord of the manor of Great Ayton, together with twenty other freeholders of the village made an agreement to enclose the ancient open fields and common pastures dividing them up amongst themselves. Sometime after this, the farm at Summerhill, nestling below Ayton Bank, would have been created. In spite of its…
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More moor burning
As soon as the weather improves so the heather burning resumes. The left-hand plume is, I think, on Cold Moor, the right, on Snilesworth. A further one, behind me to the east is Gisborough Moor. Six weeks to go before the season ends for this winter, on 15th April. If you want some good news,…
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Little Roseberry
Falling Foss was the aim but overnight snow had closed the Whitby road at Birk Brow and Gerrick. Drove for an hour and ended up back in Guisborough. A couple of hours later and the snow was rapidly disappearing off the Cleveland Hills. Quickly come quickly go. Suddenly a reminder that spring is just around…
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Roseberry Mine Reservoir
Operations at the Roseberry Ironstone Mine would have been dependent on steam power. In the 1931 public auction when the mining equipment was sold off, the lots included 2 hauling engines, 1 compressor, 1 fan engine, 4 boilers, and 2 pumping engines. To supply all these steam engines with sufficient water a reservoir was built 25 feet on the slope…
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Location, location, location
A wet day with sleet and low cloud on Roseberry Common removing Rowan trees and creating wildlife habitats with the brashings. This might sound harsh, cutting down trees especially in these days of a growing awareness of their essentiality in the removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Roseberry Common is an area of semi-open…
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Roseberry from Nunthorpe
An early reference to Roseberry Topping in literature appears in an 18th-century farce by Stockton-on-Tees born Joseph Reed “The Register Office”. His play was first performed in 1761 at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane and is the story of, what in modern terms we would call an employment agency where workers and prospective employers were…
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Roseberry Hermitage
At one time there was once a hermitage on the summit of Roseberry. It was referred to in a letter to Sir Thomas Chaloner (1559 – 1615) by a person with the initials ‘H. TR’ (who remains somewhat of a mystery). The letter was quoted in the ‘The Topographer and Genealogist Volume II’, edited by John Gough…
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“No path” off Aireyholme Lane
It would have been a bit breezy on the top of Roseberry this morning. I was battered coming across Great Ayton Moor heading into the wind. The land far side of the gate is certainly not a path but it is Open Access land all the way to the summit. I think the hawthorn trees…
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Cleared semi-open woodland of the slope of Roseberry
At peak times the summit of Roseberry Topping can get very crowded. Weekends especially. One of my regular routes avoiding the summit is to hug the boundary of the Open Access around the southern flank from Roseberry Ironstone Mine to the Summerhouse. It passed through a strip of semi-open woodland of mature hawthorn contouring around…