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Cleveland Survival
A checkpoint in Bransdale. The Cleveland Survival is a 26 mile event superbly organised by the Cleveland Mountain Rescue Team as part of their fundraising activities. The course is not revealed until after you have started and involves visiting several checkpoints such as this which are all manned by members of the team. Well done. This year’s event…
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Millstone, Park Nab
This is a bit of a mystery. In Kildale just off the Baysdale road, it’s a lump of sandstone that has obviously been dressed to the shape of a circle, a good two paces in diameter, maybe five foot, and eight inches thick. (I don’t carry a tape measure around with me so only guessing.)…
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The Sad Tale of Sarkless Kitty
April, 1784 and Kitty Garthwaite, a domestic servant girl from Gillamoor, was meeting her lover, Herbert Longster at Lowna in Farndale, close to the farm where she was employed and which was Herbert’s father’s farm. It seems Kitty was pregnant and previously, when first told, Herbert had refused to accept responsibility. Herbert’s father wasn’t too happy also and had told Kitty to leave. Herbert must…
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Newton Wood
Ramsons provide a lush carpet on the floor of Newton Woods taking full advantage of the lack of tree cover in early Spring. This area of Newton Woods has been cleared by the National Trust of non-native sycamore trees allowing much more light to reach the wood floor and encouraging the growth of ash and oak…
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Grinkle Ironstone Mine
A second dose of industrial archaeology in as many days. This is just inside the drift of the Grinkle Ironstone Mine, near Staithes. The mine dates from 1865 and operated until the 1920s. Output ceased in 1921 but was recommenced six years later with final production in 1929. Ore was carried by rail through a couple of tunnels…
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“SS” Castle, Lazenby Bank
A Grade II listed building, hidden away in the woods of Lazenby Bank. Known locally as SS Castle on account of the ‘S’ wall supports, it was built in 1876 to house a Gubial fan to provide ventilation for the ironstone mines of Bolckow, Vaughan and Company. The Eston mines were the largest in the Cleveland…
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Little Blakey Howe
A bronze age burial mound, or “round barrow” on Blakey Ridge above Rosedale. The stone was erected as a boundary stone in the eighteenth century and is probably a reused standing stone of older antiquity. The contrails high amongst the cirrus clouds can be used as a navigation aid. “Contrails” is an American word, a…
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Saltburn Scar
Ended up in Saltburn this morning. The tide was out exposing the mudstone scar littered with boulders of harder rock. The mudstone was formed when Saltburn was at the bottom of a shallow sea 188 million years ago and much closer to the equator than it is now so the temperature would have been quite different…
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Solar Eclipse, Capt. Cooks Monument
Roseberry Topping summit was heaving this morning waiting for the eclipse. Easby Moor wasn’t too busy but it had clouded up by the time I got there. The cloud meant I didn’t need the fancy glasses to see the crescent but the light was diffused so it didn’t get particularly dark. It certainly got colder.…
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Victorian Graffiti
Roseberry Topping gained its distinctive shape on a May night in 1912 when an land slump caused the cliff to collapse. At the time the ironstone mining was blamed but I understand that it is now thought to have been just a natural occurrence. But prior to 1912 the temptation to graffiti the summit sandstone was…
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