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Urra Moor
A drab misty start to the week with rain threatening. The boundary stones across Urra Moor probably mark the limit of the Feversham estate. Bilsdale below is only just visible.
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Highcliff Nab
From Bousdale Wood, near Pinchinthorp. A sandstone crag overlooking the town of Guisborough. On the northern edge of the North York Moors and a popular climbing venue, first ‘discovered’ for climbing in the 1930s. There is a Mesolithic site just beyond the summit. The Nab must have made a fine lookout for the hunters over…
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Whorl Hill
At 237m above sea level Whorl Hill has the distinction of being the 1182nd tallest hill in England. Or so the tables say. It’s an outlier of the Cleveland Hills overlooking the deserted village of Whorlton. The plantation of larch that covers the hill was planted in 1953, the year of the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth…
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Eston Moor
I went up Eston Nab today. Took thirty children from a local primary school to look at the remains of the ironstone mines and on up to the Nab. To discover their local heritage. I felt ashamed. So much litter. Everywhere piles of plastic bottles. I counted seven burnt out cars. The paths through the woods have been…
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Blakey Topping
The story goes that a giant by the name of Wade had an argument with his wife and in a fit of temper he scooped by a handful of earth and threw it at her but missed creating Blakey Topping in the process. And the hole left became the Hole of Horcum. Elgee writing in the 1930s recounts a…
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Brambles
Autumn is rapidly setting in. It’s going to be a good year for Autumn colours. Unless we have storms blowing the turning leaves off. Some bramble leaves are a deep red yet others are still green. Maybe different species. There are plenty of them. 320 at the last count. Off the main drag up to Capt.…
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Scarth Wood Farm
An intriguing building. Named on the modern map, as well as the Ordnance Survey Six Inch 1854 edition, as a farm but I can’t help thinking there is more to it than just a common or garden farmhouse. It is roofed with Welsh slate, a relatively expensive material, compare with the pantile roof of the outbuildings in…
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Birdsfoot Treeroot
A break with tradition. An arty closeup. Had an explore along Black Bank, an area of clear felling on the escarpment of Great Ayton Moor where some crags and boulders have been revealed. Interesting enough but I was fascinated by this tree stump where the bark has worn off to expose knobbly, wavy roots. Reminding me of a bird’s foot. Or…
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Piethorne Reservoir
It’s always good to explore a new area. Bleakedgate Moor, in the South Pennines south of the M62 is an area I have never been on. As the name says a bleak place, with hard gritstone tracks, tussocky moorland and black peaty bogs. But a warm, sunny day and a pleasant break on the way back from Manchester.…
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White Gill
In the Tabular Hills, limestone country in the southern half of the North York Moors and a view west over the Vale of Mowbray to the Yorkshire Dales, supposedly one of the “finest views in all of England”. White Gill, the stream at the bottom of a deep valley with no name, and downstream, the village of Kepwick.…
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