Tag: medieval
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Helmsley Castle
Not inspired by a wind-blasting on the high moors I headed to Rievaulx and a sheltered bimble along the Rye valley. For 900 years Helmsley Castle, standing on its rocky outcrop on the north bank of the Rye, has dominated the town to the west. Castles are almost entirely absent from the bleak upland plateau…
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Cockmoor Hall Earthworks
The Tabular Hills have a high concentration of Neolithic or Bronze Age earthworks: linear boundaries in the form of ditches and earthbank and round barrows and at the head of Wy Dale, before Stainton Lane descends steeply into Toutsdale, is an extensive area of a confusing mixture of prehistoric earthworks overlain by medieval. Only a…
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Coquet Island
An RSPB reserve about 1½ km offshore at Amble. Apparently it’s home to a colony of Roseate Terns. In the 7th-century the monk Cuthbert, living as a hermit, met Ælfflæd, Abbess of Whitby here. The island’s isolation appealed to many later medieval hermits and became a Benedictine monastic cell linked to Tynemouth Priory. The tower…
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Job Cross
On Moorsholm Moor. Perhaps one of the North York Moors most elusive crosses. Job Cross stands 30 metres or so north of the modern track designated as a Public Right of Way open to all traffic but once found it becomes obvious from quite a way off. The modern route must have been diverted slightly…
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Post medieval trod from Stokesley to Whitby
I stumbled across this today quite by accident. A small section of a stone trod running parallel to and about 20 metres from the Commondale to Three Howes Rigg modern road. It is recorded on the NYM NP Historical Environment Records (HER) map as “a section of the post-medieval trod or trackway from White Cross…
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Young Ralph
Walked into Bransdale Mill yesterday with a Duke of Edinburgh training group in what turned out to be a glorious day. The journey out today turned interesting. The cross known as Young Ralph is probably medieval and to me always looks better in wintry conditions. It is perhaps best known as the logo of the…
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Well, there’s good news and there’s bad news
The good news is that it looks like the Traffic Regulation Order restricting off road motorbikes and vehicles from using the medieval trod that climbs Kirby Bank has finally been issued and is in force. The trod was part of a pannierway connecting Rievaulx Abbey in Bilsdale with the River Tees. Off road motorcycles have…