Out & About …

… on the North York Moors, or wherever I happen to be.

Category: Roseberry Topping

  • The Timeless Elegance of a Spray-Painted Phallus

    The Timeless Elegance of a Spray-Painted Phallus

    This brilliant display of human ingenuity—sprayed haphazardly onto the ancient rock face on Roseberry Topping—is truly a sight to behold. The “artist,” undoubtedly a revolutionary thinker of his age and who clearly imagines himself—undoubtedly masculine, of course—as the Teesside Banksy, has chosen this timeless canvas to bless us with his daring vision. The frantic scrawls…

  • Bert: From a Cockney Chimney Sweep to Meteorological Menace

    Bert: From a Cockney Chimney Sweep to Meteorological Menace

    A seemingly harmless photo that utterly fails to capture the ferocious winds and horizontal sleet of Storm Bert. Truly, a day only a fool would choose for photography. Thus, the muted colours of this image of Roseberry Topping are my sole reward after braving the tempest. The image does, however, showcase the dry-stone wall that…

  • Crime, Concealment, and Moral Panic in Newton-under-Roseberry

    Crime, Concealment, and Moral Panic in Newton-under-Roseberry

    On the 6th of November, 1847, the Yorkshire Gazette regaled its readers with a dark tale from the village of Newton-under-Roseberry. “Concealment of Child Birth. — On Saturday last, the body of a newly born female child was found in a privy, in the village of Newton-under-Roseberry, by a person named Jackson, who nailed fast…

  • The Power of 1001: A Curse of Commercial Memory

    The Power of 1001: A Curse of Commercial Memory

    Roseberry — there is something rather comforting about returning to one’s own patch after a trip away, as if the local familiarity becomes a source of great solace. During my recent travels, I was struck by a different type of familiarity, altogether less welcome. A chap of my own vintage was sharing with us the…

  • Bracken, Oaks, and their Folklore

    Bracken, Oaks, and their Folklore

    Bracken—our most invasive ground cover, steadily browning itself to perfection. How marvellously it complements this oak woodland on Cockle Scar, on the west-facing slope of Roseberry. Who needs daffodils or bluebells when you can have a decaying fern carpeting your view? And did you know that bracken is charmingly referred to as the ‘oak fern’? Apparently,…

  • From Hill to Hill: Chasing Leys Across the Moors

    From Hill to Hill: Chasing Leys Across the Moors

    I have nearly finished a book recommended to me after a posting about an ancient trackway over the North York Moors. I found a copy of Alfred Watkins’ 1926 book on eBay—naturally, as one finds such treasures in this modern age of commerce. Watkins postulated the existence of ley lines, an idea that prehistoric sites…

  • The night lengthens and the day wanes

    The night lengthens and the day wanes

    Ah, Roseberry on the autumnal equinox – or, perhaps I should say: “a day with not much to see.” At precisely 1:44pm BST, the Earth performed its annual act of balancing on a metaphorical tightrope. It’s axis, normally so busy tilting this way and that, was for once perfectly upright, neither tipping its cap to…

  • Bagged for Your Convenience

    Bagged for Your Convenience

    After a return from just a few days away in the Lakes, I was delighted to find that the National Trust, in their usual brilliance, had thoughtfully helicoptered in around 40 large bags up the main path of Roseberry. Each one, of course, containing roughly a ton of aggregate to ensure they did not have…

  • The Forgotten Rebellion: Winter Hill’s Mass Trespass of 1896

    The Forgotten Rebellion: Winter Hill’s Mass Trespass of 1896

    Another delightfully dreich day on the North York Moors. In the murk, we stumbled upon two workers labouring away on the new footpath up Roseberry. The path, prepared to its subsoil, resembles some sort of glutinous purgatory, offering a walking experience only slightly less pleasurable than a swim in wet cement. The workers mentioned the…

  • Roseberry’s Reckoning — Rainbow’s End

    Roseberry’s Reckoning — Rainbow’s End

    The small but iconic Roseberry Topping, the crown jewel of the Cleveland Hills, offers itself as the venue for what many consider to be an annual spectacle of human folly: a race up and down its steep slopes, commencing from the village of Newton-under-Roseberry. This brief but brutal course, infamous for its lung-searing ascent followed…