Out & About …

… on the North York Moors, or wherever I happen to be.

Tag: medieval

  • The Priory Gatehouse: Overshadowed but Not Forgotten

    The Priory Gatehouse: Overshadowed but Not Forgotten

    I had reason to visit Guisborough today and took the chance to walk around the old priory. I have posted before of its great east wall—impressive as it is, it remains only a fragment of what must once have been a formidable complex. The priory met its end in 1540 with the Dissolution. Ten years…

  • A Hidden Hollow-Way on Coleson Bank

    A Hidden Hollow-Way on Coleson Bank

    This morning’s constitutional threw up a surprise. I have used the so-called ‘Green Lane’ on Coleson Bank before, climbing out of Battersby, and even posted about it. You can just make out a glimpse of it in the photo. But I do not go that way often. The narrow gulley attracts off-road motorbikes, which makes…

  • Ardtornish Castle

    Ardtornish Castle

    After a smooth and unexpectedly quiet crossing of The Minch, with only dolphins or porpoises for company, the Sound of Mull offered a surprise: Ardtornish Castle. Once a key stronghold of the Lords of the Isles—descendants of Somerled and rulers of the Western Seaboard until the late 1400s—this ruined 13th-century fortress stands at the tip…

  • Taigh a’ Bheannaich

    Taigh a’ Bheannaich

    A ruined chapel, vanishing huts, and a handful of monks who chose isolation on the edge of the Atlantic. Taigh a’ Bheannaich is where faith met the wind and held fast for 1,400 years.

  • A Day Among Norse Horizontal Mills

    A Day Among Norse Horizontal Mills

    A day of water-mills—horizontal ones, no less. We visited eight, or so I believe; one quickly loses count. It took me some time to grasp how they worked. The water wheel sits flat in a channel, its blades catching the water and spinning the millstone directly above. No gears, just force and gravity. The mills…

  • The Pannierman Way

    The Pannierman Way

    A pair of ancient standing stones flank a stretch of weather-worn path known as the Kirby Bank Trod. This marvel of medieval civil engineering forms part of a so-called “Long Trod” — a term employed because it would have required “considerable resource and supra-parochial organisation” to build such an “economic venture of some significance.” The…

  • Wheeldale Lodge: From Shooting to Youth Hostel to Private Residence

    Wheeldale Lodge: From Shooting to Youth Hostel to Private Residence

    My memories of Wheeldale Lodge are, regrettably, a jumble. One of the earliest involves the unremarkable joy of dunking sore feet in Wheeldale Beck after a needlessly long march across the Lyke Wake Walk. This was in 1969, and my 17-year-old self had been trudging for twelve and a half hours. The route comes down…

  • St. Anne’s Church, Catterick

    St. Anne’s Church, Catterick

    I found myself in Catterick with ten minutes to spare. Grand plans of a leisurely stroll quickly shrank to a brisk glance around. The village tries very hard to be charming, with its oversized green and a stream obligingly flowing by. One would not expect such rural pretence given its awkward position—wedged between a military…

  • The Bishop’s Stones

    The Bishop’s Stones

    Up on the bleak moorlands of the North Pennines today, straddling the borders of Durham, Cumbria, and Northumberland. A landscape of peat groughs and bogs thick with sphagnum moss, stirring memories—not necessarily unpleasant, just good times when I was fit enough to fly over this stuff without hesitating. Judging by the abundance of medicated grit…

  • Beyond the Pale: The Lingering Echoes of Kildale’s Past

    Beyond the Pale: The Lingering Echoes of Kildale’s Past

    The sky was an unnervingly perfect shade of cerulean this morning, while overnight frost clung on stubbornly in the shadows. This is the view from Percy Rigg towards Coate Moor, the back of Captain Cook’s, the monument making a feeble attempt at visibility—you will need to squint or zoom in if you are truly desperate…