Tag: history
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Reflections at Lonsdale Quarry
Lonsdale Quarry was fully operational during in 1874, run by a Mr Grievson. It was likely the source of stone for Christ Church in Great Ayton, opened in 1877. The quarry is now quiet, a place for solitude and reflection. But it also holds a bleak memory. One Monday in May 1874, quarryman James Smith…
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Seave Green: Through the Lens, Again
It is always a letdown to return home thinking the day’s photograph might be worth something, only to discover I have stood in the same spot, pointing the camera in precisely the same direction, years before. So it went with this view of Seave Green in Bilsdale. Today, Seave Green passes for a hamlet, though…
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When the Beck Runs Dry: Hob Hole’s Ancient Ford Revealed
The word was that Baysdale Beck at Hob Hole Wath had dropped so low the old ford surface was showing. Thank you, Stephen. I could not resist. Hob Hole has drawn picnickers since the Edwardian age. The name alone — ‘hob’, likely from ‘hobgoblin’ — conjures something hidden and tricky, a haunt of creatures best…
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Yan Tan Tether Mether Pip …
Old Molly Metcalfe counting sheep Yan tan tether mether pip she counted Up upon Swaledale steep and bleak Yan tan tether mether pip she said… So sang Jake Thackray about a Yorkshire shepherdess. It is tempting to think her sheep-counting chant is native to Yorkshire alone, but its roots run far deeper. The method likely…
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The Weather According to a Dead Bishop: Forty Days of Rain
Climate change deniers blame nature for everything. Heatwaves? Natural. Floods? Just weather being weather. Human emissions? Nothing to see there. Meanwhile, chemtrail believers take a different route entirely. For them, extreme weather is no accident but a masterstroke of global puppet masters, quietly spraying secret cocktails into the sky to bend the climate to their…
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The Stone They Left Behind
A rough-cut sandstone block lies abandoned at the top of an old quarry on Ayton Bank. It first appears on the 1915 Ordnance Survey 25-inch map. One wonders what caused the sudden stop—tools downed, the block left where it was, after the time and effort it must have taken to cut it, shape it, and…
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Potter Tarn: Providing Water for Paper
If Wainwright had not seen fit to include Potter Fell in his The Outlying Fells of Lakeland, few beyond Kendal would know it existed. Potter Tarn, however, is another matter. Along with Gurnal Dubs, it is one of the fell’s more prominent tarns. Both are favoured for wild swimming, though anyone entering Potter Tarn does so…
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Smardale Bridge — Drovers, Rebels, and Spies
Looking upstream along Scandal Beck above Smardale Bridge, where an old drovers’ track once crossed the river. The packhorse bridge here, likely built in the 18th century, stood beside a pub known as the Scotch Inn. It served the Scots drovers who passed this way with herds of cattle and sheep, bound for the markets…
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The West Lodges of Ormesby Hall
A blistering day, not ideal for digging holes, yet that was the task—installing bollards to keep after-hours dog-walkers from turning the entrance grass verges of the National Trust’s Ormesby Hall into a car park. Still, it offered a good excuse to admire the West Lodge gates, which manage to look imposing even from the rear.…
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Because It’s There: Tourists on Roseberry
Another day, another climb up Roseberry. I often wonder when someone first made the effort simply for the sake of it—“because it’s there,” as Mallory said of a rather taller peak. When did the first tourists arrive? And what exactly counts as a tourist? With its sharp outline and looming bulk, Roseberry Topping has always…