Category: North York Moors
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Hutton Hall
Only appreciated in its wooded grounds from this height on Kemplah  Bank. Sir Joseph Whitwell Pease, Bart, M.P., had Hutton Hall built as his country pile in 1866 which even included its own private railway station on the North Eastern Railway at Hutton Gate. The Pease money came from the railways, coal and iron, built…
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Skelton Park Pit
Very little remains of Cleveland ironstone mines. It was second only to coal as the UK’s biggest extractive industry. Ironstone had been mined in the Cleveland Hills since the 12th Century when primitive furnaces called bloomeries were used to melt the iron out of stone gained from rock outcrops along the dale sides. But it…
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The best thing about Pteridium aquilinum …
… is when it’s dying off. Bracken, carcinogenic, toxic to livestock, invasive and dominating, smothering the growth of other plants. At the height of the summer it forms an impenetrable undergrowth. Yet the autumn bracken changes to rich yellow hues. Super even on a drizzly morning.
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Red Admiral
I have’t noticed many butterflies this year. Has there been a shortage? This Red Admiral was fluttering about the ivy flowers on a hedge on Dykes Lane at Gribdale. It’s one of the last butterflies to be seen before winter sets in. Arriving in the spring from the continent nettles are a major food source for its caterpillars.…
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Newton Woods
A day spent working with the National Trust to carry out repairs to the steps on the main tourist route up Roseberry through Newton Woods. Two tonnes of hardcore hand carried up in buckets to make good the treads which had sunk due to compaction. 28 done, only 170 to go.
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The Cheshire Stone
Another wet morning left me dithering to go out but by lunch time the sun was breaking through. Even on the Cleveland Hills I am always amazed to discover new places and vistas. I was browsing the 1853 Ordnance Survey 6″ map when I spotted the name Cheshire Stone on the edge of Urra Moor overlooking Bilsdale. To…
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Graffiti of Roseberry
A damp miserable morning so I will have to resort to an old favourite. Is this graffiti? Is this vandalism? Questions I’ve touched on before. Behind Dove Cottage in the Lake District, one time home of the poet William Wordsworth there is a rock with WW inscribed on it. There is also DW and JW, his siblings,…
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White Cross
You might be forgiven for thinking that White Cross is so named because it is white but the whitewashing has been carried out by all the boundary stones of the Dawnay Estate. The stone post is actually 19th century sandstone but the limestone base is much older probably medieval. The original Christian cross now resides in…
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Brocken spectre
I woke up to rain this morning. Real rain at that. The sort that gets you wet. I had a lift to Guisborough planned and a run back. By the time I was dropped off it had stopped raining and by the time I climbed to Highcliff Nab the sun were breaking out leaving wisps of cloud…
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Coal Staithes, Rosedale
The end of the line of the Rosedale branch railway. The railway was built by the North East Railway Co. to service the ironstone industry but the railway also brought in goods for the villages of the dale. The Rosedale Goods Station was just 100 feet above the small community of Daleside Road and a couple of miles…