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The Cleveland Hills on a Myst-Hakel Morning
I slogged up through the old whinstone quarry, staring at the ground, my thoughts elsewhere. I braced myself to find the usual rubbish left behind by quad bikers, as if the world is their personal skip. I could hear them active yesterday. The frost-covered, sterile earth stretched ahead, with the bikers’ berms and humps standing…
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Burns Night: Tartan, Haggis, and a Global Legacy
Ah, Burn’s Night, that annual spectacle of tartan-wrapped sentimentality when the Scots remind everyone of their heritage. Beyond haggis, neeps, and tatties, there is, of course, The Address itself: Fair fa’ your honest, sonsie face, Great Chieftain o’ the Puddin-race! Perhaps not Robert Burns’s maximum opus for surely that superlative must go to ‘Auld Lang…
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Hinderwell’s Holy Well and the Legacy of St. Hilda
Storm Éowyn made it rather wild on Roseberry this morning, so let me take refuge in recent memories and revisit Wednesday’s more gentle jaunt to the Yorkshire Coast instead. This is the Holy Well in the churchyard at Hinderwell, once the village’s sole water supply. Apparently, the waters were deemed miraculous, curing eye diseases and…
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The Witch-Mare of Orra—A Forgotten Nightmare Myth
Ah, Urra—barely discernible through the oppressive cloud that choked my aimless trudge around the moor it so generously lends its name to. It is also the setting for the utterly enthralling tale of the Witch-Mare of Orra. A legend I have alluded to with tiresome frequency, though clearly without bothering to grasp its finer points.…
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Port Mulgrave: A Harbour of Erosion and Memory
The last time I ventured down Rosedale Cliff to Port Mulgrave was sometime before the world discovered a new way to grind to a halt — the dreaded COVID. Shortly afterwards, a landslip completely wiped out the path. Today, visiting the beach was not on the itinerary, but fate – in the form of National…
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Cleopatra’s Needle and its Tenuous Connection to the North Riding
Let us journey back to this day, 21st January in 1878, to Gravesend, Kent. Imagine the children, thrilled to avoid school, lining the Thames estuary to witness the grand arrival of Cleopatra’s Needle. This 3,500-year-old, 224-ton, 21-metre-high granite obelisk had been towed from Alexandria to London in a cumbersome iron vessel shaped like a cylinder.…
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Four Years On: From Relief to Dread
A dreary morning on Great Ayton Moor, perfectly suited to my mood. Four years ago, I posted about watching Joe Biden’s inauguration as the 46th President of the United States. It was the first time I had ever bothered with such a ceremony, accompanied by an immense sense of relief. Today, there is no such…
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Bold Venture Gill
The public footpaths through Highcliffe Farm have been diverted. Fascinating. I am sure there is an entirely compelling reason for depriving the public of paths they have used for decades. Perhaps the landowner fancied some peace and quiet, or maybe there was a pressing need to shift things about for reasons too profound for us…
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Flocking Together: Hebridean Sheep and Sheepdog Training
I heard, through the ever-reliable grapevine, that this small flock of Hebridean sheep at Aireyholme Farm is being used to train a young sheepdog. Predictably, just before this photo was taken, the dog had had its lesson, and the sheep were beginning to calm down. Hebridean sheep are apparently the darlings of the sheepdog training…
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Saplings and Shotguns: A Day in Bransdale
A thrilling day of digging in sunny Bransdale, planting Bloworth Wood with saplings. The chosen species were native: oak, hazel, alder, and Scots pine. Once upon a time, Bloworth Wood was a joyless conifer plantation, but thanks to the National Trust, it has been clear felled with the grand dream of establishing a “natural” woodland.…
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