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Sowerdale
I read in the proceedings of the Cleveland Naturalists’ Field Club 1903-1904 a hypothesis that at the time of the last ice age a lake existed in Kildale trapped by a great ice sheet, a thousand feet thick, flowing down the Tees valley from Stainmoor Gap. I was aware of such an ice lake in…
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Disused sandstone quarry, Easby Bank
I heard somewhere that there is evidence of twelve sandstone quarries along the escapement between Capt. Cook’s Monument and Roseberry Topping. The stone gained from these quarries would have been used for buildings in villages and farms down in the vale of Cleveland and for the miles of drystone walls that divide the moors. This…
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Côte de Grosmont
A trip out to watch the Tour de Yorkshire. By the time the riders began the 4th Classified Climb at Grosmont, there was a break in the showers. The “Côte de Grosmont” is not long, only 500m but a gradient of 15% makes it a tough little climb. Amid a cacophony, Team INEOS, in their…
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Kirby Bank
Playing with the panoramic function on my phone. This is looking back on the climb up Cringle Moor. A rather dull drizzly morning brightened by the fields of rape in the Vale of Cleveland. The fence has a bit of history. It is on the line of the old boundary between two Lords. James Emerson,…
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Pond, Great Ayton Moor
I managed to get my feet a little wet trying to take this photo and was reminded of the 1973 British Public Information Film “The Spirit of Dark and Lonely Water” menacingly narrated by Donald Pleasance, perhaps better known as Blofeld, James Bond’s arch-villain. This is a modern version of folk tales told to instil…
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I wandered lonely as a cloud …
… That floats on high o’er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host of golden dandelions; Apologies to William Wordsworth and I must admit the rhyming doesn’t work but to me, the profusion of dandelions on roadside verges at this time of the year is just as good as…
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Great Ayton from Cliff Rigg
An early wander with the dog up Cliff Rigg. Fog creeping up from the Tees Valley, its duvet not quite reaching the village. In an hour’s time, there’ll be sufficient heat in the sun for it to dissipate. Open Space Web-Map builder Code
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Upper Farndale
Perhaps the most peaceful of the North York Moors dales. That is after the short daffodil season is over and even then this high up the dale is rarely visited. It could all have been so different if the Kingston upon Hull Corporation had had its way. It brought 2,000 hectares of upper Farndale in…
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Bluebells, Newton Wood
It’s that time of the year, the bluebells of Newton Wood. They seem a bit early, it was 10 May last year when I posted my photo. A dull morning with a touch of drizzle but clouds beginning to clear after lunch. Open Space Web-Map builder Code
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Wood Field, Great Ayton
In the early 17th-century, agriculture in Great Ayton followed the ancient open-field system where the cultivated land of the parish was divided into many long narrow furlongs and sub-divided again into strips. This was all manorial land and those villagers who were tenants or serfs farmed several dozen of these unfenced strips scattered throughout the…
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