Tag: medieval
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Taigh aâ 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.
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A Day Among Norse Horizontal Mills
A day of water-millsâhorizontal 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…
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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 âLong Trodâ â a term employed because it would have required âconsiderable resource and supra-parochial organisationâ to build such an âeconomic venture of some significance.â The…
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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…
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St. Anneâs 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 positionâwedged between a military…
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The Bishopâs 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 memoriesânot necessarily unpleasant, just good times when I was fit enough to fly over this stuff without hesitating. Judging by the abundance of medicated grit…
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Beyond the Pale: The Lingering Echoes of Kildaleâs 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 Cookâs, the monument making a feeble attempt at visibilityâyou will need to squint or zoom in if you are truly desperate…
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Locky, de Eure, and the Mystery of the Weathered Effigies
Kirkby-in-Cleveland (or Kirby, for those who prefer brevity) is an ancient settlement, though that much is obvious. The name could either come from old Scandinavian, meaning âthe farm by the church,â or from Adam de Kirkby, a Norman baron who once lived in the village and generously handed over land to Guisborough Priory. According to…
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Hinderwellâs Holy Well and the Legacy of St. Hilda
Storm Ăowyn made it rather wild on Roseberry this morning, so let me take refuge in recent memories and revisit Wednesdayâs more gentle jaunt to the Yorkshire Coast instead. This is the Holy Well in the churchyard at Hinderwell, once the villageâs sole water supply. Apparently, the waters were deemed miraculous, curing eye diseases and…
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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…