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Hasty Bank
Many people call the whole of this hill Hasty Bank, taking in the Wainstones, that jumble of sandstone boulders and crags at its western end, to down to Hagg’s Gate in the east. I think the name belongs strictly to this southern flank, though Dalesfolk in the day would have said Yasty Bank. The col,…
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Who Owns the View?
Back in Ayton a temperature inversion looked highly likely. So a pedal up Park Nab was indeed well rewarded. A clear autumn morning, with cloud filling the vale and two silver birches shivering in the heather. You may well wonder who owns the view. The answer is harder to find than the cycle up here,…
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Kildale War Memorial
Most people take it for a bus shelter. It is in fact a war memorial. Kildale has about 130 residents and has never passed 200, yet 17 of its men died in the First World War. Even that memorial caused a quarrel. A parish meeting reversed the first choice of site, and it ended up…
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Walkers in the Way: The Cyclist’s Guide to Footpath Domination
Take a look at this: two electric mountain bikes weaving up a steep, single-track climb, while a pedestrian presses herself into the undergrowth to avoid being flattened. Welcome to modern countryside etiquette, where Public Footpaths are treated as private velodromes for the self-entitled. Legally, riding a bicycle on a Public Footpath in England and Wales…
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Foss Castle
An 11th-century motte-and-bailey castle, and part of last Sunday’s itinerary. I don’t get to visit often, so it felt worth posting while it’s still fresh in my memory. Scramble to the top of that bank on the left, and you’ll find a clearing of grass, rushes, and leaf litter. This is the motte. An information…
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Bonfire Night
In 1605 a plot to kill James I, blow up Parliament and set off a Catholic rebellion failed. Parliament responded by ordering an annual day of thanks. Few needed persuading. Bonfires already marked Elizabeth I’s accession on 17 November, and burning the year’s debris predates Christianity. The “Act for a Public Thanksgiving to Almighty God…
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Gold Birch, Red Berries, Black Magic
Set against the glowing gold of a yellow birch tree, a heavy crop of rowan berries awaits arriving redwings and fieldfares. The berries seem particularly abundant this year. Each red sphere bears a five-pointed star opposite its stalk. Ancient minds read this pentagram as a natural seal against malevolent spirits. Druids boiled rowan bark to…
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Castleton and The Hand of Glory
From across the valley, High Castleton looks innocent enough. Rooftops, a lane, a good deal of weather. The place has long been spoken of apart from Low Castleton below it, and in 1864 it kept an inn of its own. The Wakefield Free Press in that year reported: “The Buck Inn, William Lawson’s, is a…
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Masonry Hotchpot: The Medieval Engineering and Modern Preservation of Old Mulgrave Castle’s Wall
Some more photos from yesterday’s rather damp walk around Mulgrave Woods. At first glance, this restored perimeter wall of Old Mulgrave Castle looks like a quiet relict of medieval heritage. Behind the freshly stabilised masonry lies a long record of bulging walls and Civil War gunpowder, followed by a change in landscape fashion. That hotchpot…
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Mrs Sharp of Mulgrave Castle
This is the 14th-century north-east lodging tower of Old Mulgrave Castle. The keep was certainly occupied in the 16th century, when mullioned windows were inserted, and the 19th century saw it partly rebuilt. Nigel Fossard is supposed to have built the castle around 1200 to replace Foss Castle, 700m to the west. Lord Sheffield turned…
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