Tag: National Trust
-
Grazing on the Common
Roseberry Common is, as its name implies, Common land. Once belonging to the Lord of the Manor of Newton, it was vital to village life. Here the people gathered fuel, grazed their livestock, and scraped together the means to keep both body and hearth alive through harsh seasons. If you look closely, you may spot…
-
RIP SKIPPY: A Memorial Nobody Wants
Just below the summit of Roseberry Topping—a name that sounds like a pudding but is in fact Teesside’s iconic hill—there’s a large crag sandstone, rock that was laid down millions of years ago. The hill itself has only existed for twenty thousand or so, which makes it practically new money in geological terms. Moss and…
-
The Hay Barn at Bransdale Mill
Tucked away behind Bransdale Mill stands this elegant three-bay hay barn, built in stone and retiled in the 1980s. Once, each arched entrance was fitted with sturdy wooden double doors, a reminder of its working life. The barn belongs to the story of the Bransdale Mill complex, largely shaped in the 18th century under William…
-
The Long Lost Way to Cockayne
At first glance, it is nothing remarkable: a pair of stone gate stoops, standing quietly beside a graceful curve in a dry-stone wall, just south-west of Cockayne Church. But ignore the leaning wooden 5-bar gate secured by baling twine, and a closer look tells a different story. These are no rough farm gateposts. Each is…
-
Purple Heather, Brown Truth
The ling, or common heather, has reached its peak bloom just days before the start of the grouse shooting season — the annual spectacle in which profit and sport take precedence over the land itself. This year, the display is patchy. Whole swathes have turned a brittle reddish-brown, appearing dead but showing faint signs of…
-
Bridestones Moor: The Burden of an Ancient Earthwork
A return to Bridestones Moor for the annual task of clearing the Scheduled Ancient Monument — the prehistoric dyke — of bracken and self-seeded saplings. Without this, roots and undergrowth would soon begin to damage what little remains of it. The dyke, a double bank and ditch nearly a kilometre long, is thought to date…
-
Clearing the Past: The Lost Drumhouse of Newton Wood
A morning with the National Trust, cutting back the summer growth from around the brick and stone remains known as the Kip, at the Cliff Rigg end of Newton Wood. The Kip is the remains of the head of a narrow-gauge tramway incline. Ore from Roseberry Ironstone Mine once hurtled down here under its own…
-
Orange Spots — The Slow Death of Ash Dieback
Ash dieback is sweeping through Cliff Ridge Wood, and the National Trust Rangers have been out marking doomed ash trees with orange spots. These are the infected—struck by a disease caused by the fungus Hymenoscyphus fraxineus. It came from Asia, hitched a ride on the global plant trade, and now spreads on the wind. Once…
-
The Battle for the Barrows
In a tide of encroaching bracken, a few exposed stones on a low rise suggest something hidden just beneath the heather. I am standing on a Round Barrow—one of four, perhaps five—in what was once a Bronze Age cemetery. These circular burial mounds, called barrows or cairns when built of stone, are the most common…
-
Yorkshire’s Pride: The Enduring Allure of Roseberry Topping
It has been some time since I inflicted a post about Roseberry Topping upon the world, the conical-shaped hill that looms over this northeastern corner of what is the historical county of Yorkshire, albeit a recycling of previous posts. Local pride being what it is, they have long called it “t’ highest hill i’ all…