Tag: history
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Beldi Hill Smelt Mill
Following my exhausting cycle ride around Swaledale yesterday, I wisely opted not to stray far today. So instead, here is another photograph from that trip. I was aware of Swaledaleâs lead mining legacy, but stumbling upon this particular site was an unexpected delight. The Beldi Hill Smelt Mill sits awkwardly wedged into the hillside, just…
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Thwaiteâs Gift to the Natural World: The Lives of the Kearton Brothers
A typical Swaledale landscape: stone-built cottages in Thwaite and those endlessly fascinating dry-stone walls dissecting the surrounding fields. Many of the walls date from the 18th century, but, alas, there is the obligatory parked car ruining the scene. Otherwise, one imagines this view would be instantly familiar to Thwaiteâs greatest sons, Richard and Cherry Kearton.…
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Jacksonâs BankâMedieval Trod
As you reach the top of Jacksonâs Bank, it is hard not to imagine that, at the turn of the last century, weary walkers resting upon these boulders were serenaded by the rather pastoral sounds of iron-laden trucks grinding, screeching, and clattering their way down that incline on the opposite side of Greenhow Botton. This…
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Westworth Reservoir: Gorse and Other Triumphs of Nature
In my Guisborough days, I would often run a circuit round Westworth Reservoir. This morning, in a fit of nostalgia, I returned to that old stomping ground. How changed it is. The former reservoir bed has given way to a jungle of gorse, now sprawling with abandon, save for a dank, overgrown marsh clinging feebly…
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Roseberry Common and the âTragedyâ of Our Shared Resources
âRoseberry Commonâ â the name, so familiar, may scarcely remind us that this is indeed Common land, open for grazing, fuel, and other resources by the Commoners. Though now under the care of the National Trust, Commoners with lingering rights to this land persist like relics, a living exhibit the Trust must tread carefully around,…
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Ellen Wilkinson: The Fiery Reformer of Middlesbrough East
It has been some time since I was last on Eston Nab, that famed vantage point over Teesside, whose viewsâoh, those familiar scenesâshift and churn like the Tees itself in flood, eternally restless, rarely still. Come with me, back to this day, 29 October, 100 years ago, 1924. The British people were trudging to the…
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Hasty Bank and an Old Gatepost
Whenever Iâm Out & About, I rarely start out with any sort of plan. There might be a vague idea of a route, but more often than not, I just make it up as I go along. Some might call that reckless, others might deem it inconsiderate or just plain annoying, but I like to…
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Kildale’s Wet Dig
And so the rains came to St. Hildaâs chapel, bringing a somewhat damp close to the archaeological dig season in picturesque Kildale. What mysteries lie behind those enigmatic stone footings â which bear more than a passing resemblance to a garden feature than to any sacred structure â must now remain hidden for yet another…
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Echoes of the Leven: A Riverâs Memory
A quick photo before raindrops splattered the camera lens. The River Leven is high, a few determined souls brave the weather, and the paths are mostly puddles. I have taken a photo from this spot before, though I only realised that after I got home. My computer, as ever, has a far better memory than…
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From Widheris to Wether House: A Farmsteadâs History
On Wetherhouse Moor, nature is quietly concealing the remains of a post-medieval farmstead beneath the watchful eye of a solitary sycamore. Of the original three ranges, little can be discerned now, save for a crumbling gable end of a barn. It has, for more than a century, since the last tenants left, been steadily yielding…