Category: Bilsdale
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Cheshire Stone
On the lip of Urra Moor, overlooking the village of Urra. I wonder what came first: the moor or the village? It is said the name might derive from the Norse ‘haugr‘ meaning a hill. Or it could from the Old English word for dirty — ‘horheht‘/’horhig‘/’horuweg‘ — apparently Try speaking the words without pronouncing…
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Ladhill Gill
Ladhill Beck separates the parish of Hawnby from Bilsdale Westside. The upper reaches have a desolate feel with forlorn farmsteads: Honey Hill, Sike House, Low and High Twaites, Hazelshaw House, Sod Hall, Weather House, and Bumper Castle. That’s Bumper Castle in the photo, right of centre. It seems to have grown more forlorn since the…
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Fangdale Beck
I find it frustrating photographing villages, there are always cars parked along the lanes and many interesting buildings have undergone conversion into residential. Take for example the methodist chapel at Fangdale Beck, half way down Bilsdale. Built in 1927, last used in 1984, and since converted. To me, it is a rather unusual methodist chapel…
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The lonely death of Christopher Hutchinson
A farm with a strange name, Stingamires. Named after the gill beyond. But what came first, the farm or the gill? The farmhouse and attached outbuilding are Grade II Listed. The farmhouse was built in the 17th-century as a thatched longhouse typical of the North York Moors and containing a full cruck truss. A year…
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Bracing Bilsdale
I find there’s something bracing about being out after a fresh fall of snow. Particularly an unexpected fall of snow. This is Bilsdale, looking south from Hasty Bank. The settlement left of centre is the hamlet of Urra. Elgee wrote that “it is a trite axiom geology that the width of a valley and not…
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Joan Hutton-Wilson Memorial
I’ve come across this memorial before, in a bracken infested copse just off the steep Trenet Bank out of Bilsdale. I was almost surprised to find it: 1968 Joan Hutton-Wilson who loved Bilsdale Not that I thought it would have disappeared. The main photo is the view from the memorial. Chop Gate is centre, the…
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Tarn Hole
Had a trot up to the Bilsdale transmitter to see how the new mast was getting along. As its going to take 19 months, I shouldn’t have expected to see anything. There was just one bloke high up the temporary mast. What a view on a vernal morning. The view was maybe not quite as…
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Billy’s Dyke
So named after William the Conqueror, who was supposed to have passed this way in his harrying of the north. Here he met with a storm and cursed in its face. I’m surprised I haven’t posted about this 4.4km earthwork along the eastern edge of Bilsdale before but it’s not exactly the most photogenic subject. Another…
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‘Uitwaaien’ on Hasty Bank
I was reminded of a Dutch idiom this morning: ‘uitwaaien‘, which means to go walking in windy weather to clear your head or lift your heart. . For the first half hour or so, I took a favourite path of mine, along the southern flank of the long flat-topped Hasty Bank, the easternmost of ‘the…
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Dragon’s breath
Another outing dominated by low lying mists and the sun’s faculence. Bilsdale today. I wonder what our ancient ancestors would have made of these meteorological phenomena. That temporary blind spot after glimpsing directly into the sun — ok, our ancestors would not have been driving. And that low lying winter mist clinging to the fields…