Tag: 18th-century
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Roseberry’s Summerhouse: What Was It For? Nobody Quite Knows
A while has passed since I last posted a photo of Roseberry’s summerhouse. I call it a summerhouse, though nobody agrees on what this odd building was for. The National Park have stuck a plaque on it calling it a shooting box. Fine, except a sketch by George Cruit puts the building there in 1788,…
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Drawing the Blood String: An 18th-Century Ritual
I had to negotiate this suckler herd grazing quietly under Easby Moor today. That stare. Intense, almost hostile. Yet these were docile animals, and generally always have been — which is precisely why farmers could do things to them that would make a surgeon wince. Yorkshire has a particular buried history here. “Drawing” the “nature…
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Ticksey How
The Smeathorns Road across the moor to Castleton. I have ridden it more times than I can count, and today I nearly missed it again. A boundary stone. Right there, behind the stock fence. Weathered sandstone, inscribed “S Ticksey how” — marking the old boundary between the parishes of Stanghow and Moorsholm. The wire mesh…
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What Happens When a Scottish Earl Falls in Love With Germany
Some buildings serve a purpose. Kinnoull Tower is not one of them — and that is precisely the point. Perched on a rocky outcrop near the 222-metre summit of Kinnoull Hill, above the winding River Tay outside Perth, the tower is a folly.  It was never a fortress. Nobody defended it. Nobody lived in…
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Elm Houses: A Story of Two Bransdale Farms
Tucked into a remote part of Bransdale, Elm Houses has a history worth telling. What is today one tidy holiday cottage surrounded by idle farm buildings was once two entirely separate farms: High and Low Elm House. On the right stands High Elm House, a long 18th-century range. A lintel stone dated 1780 records its…
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Wallington Bridge
A photo from last weekend’s jaunt up Northumberland, we called in at Wallington Hall on the way home. This National Trust property is a sign that one can build a very good place if one is willing to import enough rum and sugar. This truth is not exactly comfortable for those who prefer their history…
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Kirby Bank — A Hill With a Past
Bluebells pour down the sun-baked flank of Kirby Bank above the plain of Cleveland. Gorse burns yellow across the slopes. Below, the white walls of the Pybus Scout Centre gleam in the spring light. Beyond the green patchwork of fields, Roseberry Topping rises on the far horizon under a sky without a single cloud. A…
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Rede Bridge: Carrying Nothing But a Grassy Track
Built in 1715, Rede Bridge crosses the River Rede in rural Northumberland with two confident stone arches and a smaller flood arch on the right bank. It is Grade II listed. It is, by any measure, too good a bridge for a field path. So why build it at all? The most persuasive answer involves…
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Burnsall Moor Chimney: Too Small to Be Famous, Too Stubborn to Disappear
High on the moor south of Burnsall, a chimney stands alone among the remains of what was probably a boiler house. Nobody seems entirely sure what it is. At least I have found no creditable source. Opinion is that it belonged to one of the many small collieries that scratched away on these Yorkshire moors…
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Boxer Peacock’s Cottage, Arkengarthdale
Another post from last Thursday’s jaunt from Arkengarthdale, when I walked straight past one of the curiosities in the dale. On the track up from Fremington, I spotted what looked like a broken bit of Victorian drainpipe stuck in the bank, overflowing with water. I gave it barely a glance and walked on. Fool. Back…