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Lochranza Castle
Standing on a grassy spit of sand and shingle in the middle of Loch Ranza looking out to sea, the castle is in a pretty ruinious state. The aspect is rather spoilt by ugly industrial fencing intended to keep the unwary out. The original castle was built in the 13th-century by the Lords of Knapdale,…
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Fingal’s Cauldron Seat
Giants do get around a bit. In Yorkshire, Wade performed huge landscaping feats. But Wades attempts were nothing compared to Fionn mac Cumhaill, or Fingal in its anglicized form. He built a causeway bridging Northern Ireland with Scotland only to have it destroyed by a rival giant. He pops on Staffa island where a cave…
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Cock of Arran
The northern tip of the Isle of Arran is called the ‘Cock of Arran‘. Just to the east of the promontory is a sandstone large boulder that is supposed to resemble a cockerel. Or it did until someone knocked its head off. When that happened is lost in history. It was certainly history in 1932…
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Red deer, Loch Ranza
Went for an evening walk along the shore of Loch Ranza on the Isle of Arran, and, on the way back, in the gathering gloom, this remarkably tame fine beast eyed us up but stood his ground. I wonder if he is a descendant of the twenty red deer that were brought onto the island…
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Wanlockhead
An interesting walk around Wanlockhead’s heritage trail. Wanlockhead, Scotland’s highest village, and “God’s Treasure House” although his treasure of the ores of lead, zinc, copper, silver and gold had to be gained by hard dangerous work in extremely tough living conditions. The village of Wanlockhead existed before the Quaker company of the London Mining Company…
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A Method for May
On this day in 1937 the Bradford Observer ran this little piece in the paper’s ‘Yorkshire Gossip’ column:— A Method for May. Were you up at 4 o’clock this morning, gathering green branches, rehearsing the steps of your morris, ” feateously footing the hobbyhorse,” and washing your face in the dew ? Perhaps you did…
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James Emerson of Easby Hall
“Charming and ingeneous” according to the ever euphuistic Pevsner, Easby Hall was built sometime between 1808 and 1823 soon after Robert Campion acquired the Lordship of the Manor. Campion was a Whitby based banker who acquired his money from shipbuilding, sail cloth manufacture and other industries. He also was responsible for the erection of Capt.…
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Simondscliff — the medieval name of Park Nab
In the 13th-century, the Lord of the Manor of Kildale, William de Percy, granted a chapel ‘for the safety of my soul (and the souls) of my wives, children, my parents and all my ancestors’ to the Augustinian Priory at Healaugh Park near Tadcaster. The charter describing the land is in Latin but a translation…
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“Murder at Kildale”
West House Farm, at the foot of the climb up Kempswithin on the Westerdale road. Seen here across Peat Carr, the boggy watershed between Kildale and Commondale. The farm was listed as part of Kildale Estate when it was sold by Sir Charles Turner in 1806. Then, it was occupied John Rigg who paid a…
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Turkey Nab
Turkey Nab with a backdrop of Carr Ridge and White Hill. A gloomy over cast day, which doesn’t do credit to probably the best view of the Cleveland Hills and the fertile plain below. The stiff, steep climb of Turkey Nab, a favourite for off-road enthusiasts, is an ancient track over the dark moors to…
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