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Deck the hall with boughs of holly ….
On shrub clearance on Bridestones Moor and a large holly tree is amongst the casualties. Oh dear, it’s considered bad luck to fell a holly tree. But I didn’t actually fell it. The cutting of boughs to deck the halls is acceptable as is pollarding for use as winter fodder. Very nutritional apparently. Which leads…
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The art of Kemplah Wood
I seized on an opportunity to be dropped off in Guisborough and run home and, as the weather was dire, decided to stick to the woods and go over my old training grounds. It’s almost thirty years since I lived in Guisborough but while the main forest tracks are the same much has changed under…
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The first frost of the year
No temptation to hurkle-durkle this morning, a clear sky this dawn promised a good sunrise. Maybe Jack Frost had visited but there was no evidence of his telltale fern-like patterns on the windows. Or maybe nowadays he just avoids double glazed windows. But a thin layer of ice crystals did cover the grass and fallen…
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Well, there’s good news and there’s bad news
The good news is that it looks like the Traffic Regulation Order restricting off road motorbikes and vehicles from using the medieval trod that climbs Kirby Bank has finally been issued and is in force. The trod was part of a pannierway connecting Rievaulx Abbey in Bilsdale with the River Tees. Off road motorcycles have…
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Scotch Corner Chapel
I’m currently reading “The Plot” by Madeleine Bunting. It is the story of her father’s obsession with an acre of land adjoining the old Hambleton drovers’ road as it descends from the high moors to Oldstead and the Vale of York. Although I’ve passed by before, it is not an area I know that well.…
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Bronze Age Round Cairn on a scorched moor
Sunday before last (18th) was a glorious November day. Blue skies, little wind with many walkers taking to the moors. I recall standing on Cliff Rigg and noticing the number of folk on Roseberry. But the scene was marred by dense black smoke coming from the direction of Newton and Great Ayton Moors. The periodic…
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Hanging Stone and the Vale of Mowbray
A hammer-shaped sandstone rock on the southern end of Thimbleby Bank, between Osmotherley and Over Silton and offering fine views across the Vale of Mowbray. Views which were spoilt by the noise of a constant barrage of gunshots, many a clay pigeon blasted to smithereens. The Vale of Mowbray is that the broad lowlands between…
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Sunshine on Grime Moor
Volunteering with the National Trust on Bridestones Moor. On a wet, windy day with poor visbility a moor can feel so inhospitable. But then quite suddenly the front passes, blue skies emerge, and the sun shines on Grime Moor. It’s back to being magical. Grime Moor is the pasture in the distance; ‘Grime’ is derived…
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One man and his reluctant dog
From his origins in Germanic and Norse mythologies Odin has been a revered god associated with many things: wisdom, healing, death, royalty, the gallows, knowledge, battle, sorcery, poetry, frenzy, war. The list goes on to include the wind and it was certainly a wee bit windy on Odin’s hill today. How strong? I guessed a…
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Holloway, Faceby Plantation
What must be an old forgotten track climbing the escarpment onto the moors through Faceby Plantation. It must be an ancient route. But leading to where? It seems to head towards the Public Footpath and linear earthwork which tops the skyline on Live Moor at Road Head above the spring with the delightful name of…
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