Category: Roseberry Topping
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Your friendly neighbourhood Robin
Working in the shade of Roseberry, where the frost persisted all day. Two years ago, almost to the day, we planted a new hedge along the north-western boundary of Roseberry Common. Some of those saplings have failed to thrive and so the task today for the National Trust volunteers was to fill in the gaps.…
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Roseberry Well
I’ve been saving this for a rainy day. For when the clag’s down. And the wind is whipping up the snowflakes. This small damp gash in the hillside is likely to be the Roseberry Well where a young prince was said to have drowned. Nowadays no water flows from the spring and the crevice acts…
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Roseberry Common
A glorious morning on Roseberry. The light overnight snow has highlighted the scars left by 19th century jet mining. The spoil still sterile after all these years. The hard black fossil of the Monkey Puzzle tree has been prized for jewellery since the Bronze Age but it was made fashionable by Queen Victoria after the…
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Today is St. Thomas’s Day
Or is it? The great god Wikipedia says is 21st December, tomorrow. But Rev. J. C. Atkinson in his 1858 tome “Forty Years in a Moorland Parish” writes that it is the 20th December. I am more inclined to believe the Reverend. An old-fashioned book sitting on my shelf has more authenticity. Whatever the day…
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The first frost of the year
No temptation to hurkle-durkle this morning, a clear sky this dawn promised a good sunrise. Maybe Jack Frost had visited but there was no evidence of his telltale fern-like patterns on the windows. Or maybe nowadays he just avoids double glazed windows. But a thin layer of ice crystals did cover the grass and fallen…
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A fine day for a stroll up Roseberry
Roseberry was busy with many taking advantage of the November blue skies. The rockface looks as though there’s been a bit of a rockfall with patches clean of weathering. I haven’t heard of anything though. The main crag was exposed in the major rockfall which occurred in May 1912 when the shape of the summit…
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First snow of the winter
Whoopee. Woke up to falling snow. The first of the winter. And much more to come according to the Express. Their forecast is the coldest winter for years. Very dire, El Nino’s fault apparently. The photo is on Roseberry Common looking up Little Roseberry. The snow was now sleet. Remembered my hat, remembered my gloves…
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When Roseberrye Toppinge weares a cappe …
Towards the weste there stands a highe hill called Roseberry Toppinge, which is a marke to the seamen, and an almanacke to the vale, for they have this ould ryme common, “When Roseberrye Toppinge weares a cappe Let Cleveland then beware a clappe.” For indeede yt seldome hath a cloude on yt that some yll…
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Hawthorn hedgerow
And so into October, the eighth month of the old ten-month Roman calendar. Eventually, they cottoned on that having 60 days of winter “monthless” wasn’t such a good ideal so January and February were added and October became the tenth month. And one of the delights of October is that the countryside still retains some…
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Roseberry Sunset
Such a cracking sunset last night that I had another evening stroll. An online ephemeris tells me the sun will set at 269.4°, pretty close to due west. Not surprising when you think about it, just two days after the Autumn equinox. And it just so happens that Roseberry Topping is a smidgen off due…