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Lieutenant Wilfred Littleboy: Remembered on the Day he Fell, 9 October 1917
No one can say for certain whether young Wilfred Littleboy ever scrambled down the steep bank to cross the new bridge over Skelton Beck and wander into Old Saltburn, with its whitewashed cottages huddled beneath Cat Nab and the gaiety of its fairground by the sea. It is difficult to picture a spirited boy resisting…
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Echoes of Killi: A Brief History of Kildale
Hidden behind the trees to the left in the photo stands St Cuthbert’s Church, its quiet stones guarding secrets far older than the building itself. During construction in the 19th century, workmen uncovered a remarkable find: several Viking graves, complete with swords and traders’ weighing scales. The discovery hinted that Kildale was once far more…
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Along the Howl: Echoes of Old Marske
Marske can justly claim to be among the oldest settlements on the Cleveland coast. The lonely tower of St Germain, with its small cemetery, stands upon ground that has been holy for some fourteen centuries, the first church being raised there in the Saxon age. For many generations, worshippers from Redcar and Coatham made their…
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Grazing on the Common
Roseberry Common is, as its name implies, Common land. Once belonging to the Lord of the Manor of Newton, it was vital to village life. Here the people gathered fuel, grazed their livestock, and scraped together the means to keep both body and hearth alive through harsh seasons. If you look closely, you may spot…
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RIP SKIPPY: A Memorial Nobody Wants
Just below the summit of Roseberry Topping—a name that sounds like a pudding but is in fact Teesside’s iconic hill—there’s a large crag sandstone, rock that was laid down millions of years ago. The hill itself has only existed for twenty thousand or so, which makes it practically new money in geological terms. Moss and…
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How Hush: A Gorge Carved by Water and Industry
Another glimpse from Thursday’s wander through Swaledale: this is How Hush, a scar across the hills carved not by nature but by centuries of lead mining. Lead was likely valued here long before history began to take notes. The vast Grinton–Fremington dykes, which probably marked prehistoric tribal boundaries, bear silent witness to early human presence…
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Grinton Smelting Mill
Grinton Smelting Mill is one of the best-preserved lead mills in the Yorkshire Dales. It sits in Cogden Gill, just south of Grinton village, at the confluence of two becks. The site offered water, level ground, and easy access to ore. One of the becks had to be diverted, culverted and partly covered to make…
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Who Was Mitchell Atkinson?
Most of you know I am no admirer of memorials. Benches, plaques and carved rocks scatter the moors like litter. Yet this one is somewhat different, as if justified by age. Hidden off the main paths above Greenhow Botton since 1972, I had no idea it existed until I came across it, a few years…
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The Bridge at Baysdale: A Relic of a Lost Priory
This bridge in Baysdale is more than a quaint curiosity. Its single arch spans Black Beck with quiet dignity, yet the quirky little parapets give it certain character. These are later additions, added in the seventeenth or eighteenth century by someone with a flair for decoration but little sense of symmetry. The bridge was originally…
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Aireyholme: The Humble Launchpad of Empire’s Favourite Navigator
From the summit of Roseberry Topping, the Cleveland landscape performs its finest impression of timeless rural charm: undulating green fields stitched together by hedgerows, with Aireyholme Farm sitting unobtrusively in the middle like it’s been dropped there by a distracted cartographer. This was the patch of the country where the young James Cook grew up,…
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