Tag: railway
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Larpool Viaduct: The Brick Monument of the Esk
Larpool Viaduct at Whitby stands today like a brick-red monument to an age when Victorian railway engineers thought artistically, even as they fought mud, tides, and buried forests. Completed in 1884 to carry the Scarborough and Whitby line across the deep valley of the River Esk, it was built entirely of brick, a deliberate rejection…
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Tornado in Commondale
This locomotive racing up Commondale may look like a relic of steam’s golden age, but it is in fact a modern creation. It is the Tornado. Built not in the age of steam, but in 2008. A replica of the Peppercorn Class A1 Pacific, a type once common on Britain’s railways. All of the originals…
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Roseberry Topping and the Lingering Trace of a Railway
A view of Roseberry Topping that will be familiar to anyone enduring the A173. A fleeting moment of brightness in an otherwise wet and windy day spent planting trees in Bransdale. Of mild interest here is the embankment, now smothered in yellow-flowering gorse and lined with skeletal silver birch trees. This was once a curving…
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Jackson’s Bank—Medieval Trod
As you reach the top of Jackson’s 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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Siberia on the Moors — A Lost Railway Community
For nigh on seventy years, this exposed stretch on Greenhow Moor, with its splendid panorama of the Cleveland Plain and beyond, served as home for a community of railway workers and their families. Sited at the top of the Ingleby Incline, a cluster of building once stood here, in a location so remote and exposed…
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Low Baring: The end of the line
The former terminus of the east branch of the Rosedale Ironstone Railway. The branch line was built to serve the mines on the east side of the dale. It was opened in August 1865 by the North Eastern Railway although it is likely construction may have begun by the mine owners. The 4Âľ mile route…
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The Cleveland Plain from Ingleby Incline
As I was struggling up the Ingleby Incline I spotted the carving of the top hatted gentleman about Âľ of the way up and a nascent connection with one of today’s historical anniversaries formed. I have taken a photo of the carving before. Nothing much has changed so I thought I might as well reuse…
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River Tweed
The River Tweed, traditionally designated as the border between Scotland and England since 1018 when Malcolm II, King of all Scotland, claimed the River Tweed as the boundary of his kingdom. But Berwick-upon-Tweed’s strategic importance, on the north bank of the river, has meant the town has undergone several changes between the kingdoms of Scotland…
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Incline Top
My morning constitutional today featured a one way run from Bank Foot to Clay Bank over Urra Moor. And to save a bit of time I used the old railway incline to ascend to the moor top. I’d forgotten how much of a slog it is. Nowadays, I am, more often than not, descending on…
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Old railway bridge at Swainby Ellers
The fern that has found a home on the stonework of this old railway bridge first caught my eye. Now I could confidently write it’s a Lady Fern but that would be just a sheer guess. Ferns are notoriously difficult to identify, and it would take some climbing ability for a closer look. An ability…