• On a windswept Roseberry Common

    On a windswept Roseberry Common

    Not many visitors climbing Roseberry today. There will be plenty of car parking down in Newton. On popular days parking is becoming very difficult. Folk are reluctant to use the National Park run carpark because of the cost preferring instead to park on the verges. There are proposals to introduce double yellow lines and an…

  • Tocketts Ironstone Mine Ventilation Shaft

    Tocketts Ironstone Mine Ventilation Shaft

    Hidden away on the steep wooded slopes of Tocketts Beck, a reminder of the Cleveland ironstone boom. A ventilation shaft with a tall, rather precarious looking chimney built to aid the updraft just above where a Public Footpath crosses the beck. The mine was a short-lived venture lasting for just nine years from 1880 although…

  • Highcliff Gate

    Highcliff Gate

    After last night’s passage of Storm Deidre, a benign sunny morning. Bit disappointing to find no snow but icy tracks made the going interesting. This is looking west along the watershed between the Tees and the Esk, across Highcliff Gate to Potter’s Ridge with Roseberry peeping over the skyline. Open Space Web-Map builder Code

  • “By, yon’s a sooth-east, piner, aa’reet!”

    “By, yon’s a sooth-east, piner, aa’reet!”

    To be honest the weather today hasn’t been the most conducive for the taking of photographs. A raw, bitter wind which does not take the trouble to go around you, but pierces right through to your very bones. No matter my layers of Polartec, gloves and a hat of the finest merino wool. ‘A lazy…

  • The Folly

    The Folly

    Strong morning sunshine on a stand of beech on a green hill. The stand is called “The Folly”, the hill is How Hill, a gravel mound left by the meltwater of a retreating glacier. At 166m above sea level, it is not a big hill but it is tempting to say it gave its name…

  • Sunrise over Great Hograh Moor

    Sunrise over Great Hograh Moor

    Early morning trot up to Newton Moor. Somewhere the sun is shining but a bank of cloud blocks it. A few birches left after the felling of the forestry on Black Bank, skeletonised for the winter. The graceful birch, one of the first trees to colonise Britain after the glaciers retreated. The wood is hard…

  • Where’s Arthur?

    Where’s Arthur?

    In July this year, for the first time since 2014, two hen harriers fledged from a nest in the Peak District. The two birds, one male and one female were both tagged by the RSPB. The male was given the name Arthur and his sister Octavia. Arthur hung around the Peak District for a few…

  • Ghost sign, Castleton

    Ghost sign, Castleton

    I am fascinated by the faint traces of advertising signage can occasionally be seen on old established buildings. This one was painted and is on a sandstone cottage on Church Street, Castleton as it climbs up to the village centre. Too faint now to be readable though. I don’t suppose the parish council would agree…

  • Glaisdale Side

    Glaisdale Side

    Glaisdale is one of the Moors’ less visited dales. About 5km in length, running north-east to south-west. A true rural idyll. But this has not always been so. There is evidence of Medieval bloomeries belonging to the Guisborough Priory and of collieries at the head of the dale. The construction of the railway along the…

  • Low Cable Stone

    Low Cable Stone

    Not the easiest of places to get to, hidden away overlooking Tripsdale Beck. No Public Right of Way passes close by. A gamekeeper’s track can be made use of but the final 400m is a heather bash over Collar Ridge. But it’s well worth the effort. Tom Scott Burns, the author of many books on…

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