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Blackthorn thicket, Newton Wood
A bit of a wet morning, with wisps of cloud skirting the hills. In a few weeks time, this blackthorn thicket will have settled back into an unassuming backdrop to the wonderful display of bluebells in Newton Wood. A few early sprigs are already showing. But for now, the spiny blackthorn takes the stage with…
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18th-Century Privy
A fine example of vernacular architecture at its best, the outside toilet or privy at the bottom of the garden of Warren House in Kildale. The privy is a Listed Building Grade II in its own right. Rubblestone walls with a pantile roof with, apparently, the wooden-seated privy still inside. I didn’t sneak a look…
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Larch Roses
A common name for the female flowers of the European larch tree. The male flowers are clusters of yellow anthers which form on the underside of shoots. Pollination is by the wind after which the roses ripen into the familiar brown cones containing the seeds which dispersed by the wind. The larch is now firmly…
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Barnaby Moor
On this day in 1941, at 24,000 feet above Eston Moor F/Lt Tony Lovell DFC, flying a Spitfire from No.41 Squadron, engaged a German Junkers Ju 88 aircraft on a reconnaissance mission to Manchester. It was in the middle of the afternoon. The Junkers was shot down and crashed, exploding on impact, on Barnaby Moor. The…
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Climb to Percy Cross from Lonsdale
Last Tuesday evening I walked with the Smellies, a group of ex-athletes. Think Last of the Summer Wine. Anyway, we walked from Bank Foot across the fields to Battersby, then climbed Coleson Bank, along the moor before descending Turkey Nab. Both Coleson Bank and Turkey Nab are ‘green lanes’, ancient routes which have managed to…
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The Old Schoolhouse, Bransdale
The former schoolhouse, now used as a community centre for the families of this isolated dale, which number around 25 including 9 farms. A far cry from Bransdale at its peak in the 19th-century when the population numbered around 400 including innkeepers, shoemakers, blacksmiths, millers, school teachers, dairymen and jet and coal miners. The small…
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Farndale Daffs
Headed over into Farndale to see the famous native wild daffodils. I wonder if the huge crowds that trudged the short gravelled path beside the River Dove between Low Mill and Church Houses were as disappointed as me. Very patchy with large areas completely void of flowers. It’s said that the first bulbs were planted…
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Kildale
As viewed from Percy Rigg Farm. A fertile green valley with Park Nab on the left and Coate Moor on the right. J. Fairfax-Blakeborough writing in 1901 in his book ‘Great Ayton, Stokesley & District, past and present’ recounts that Satan was often seen poaching in the dale with his imps. The gamekeeper, a Stephen…
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Sheaths
It was the dry stone wall that first caught my eye. A wobbly wall. The two walkers are using the well constructed Cleveland Way to cross Scarth Wood Moor, a National Trust property given in 1937 by Major Herbert Peake and his son Capt. Osbert Peake, later to become the 1st Viscount Ingleby of Snilesworth.…
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Tarn Hows
The National Trust has been doing a lot of felling on their Tarn Hows property opening up new vistas but this is a small consolation for the change in the character of the tarn and woods from an iconic Lakeland wooded tarn to an area resembling the aftermath of a Tunguska event. The felling is…
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