Category: Cleveland Hills

  • Crannimoor: A Hill, a CafĂ©, and a Case of a Misplaced Apostrophe

    Crannimoor: A Hill, a Café, and a Case of a Misplaced Apostrophe

    On Cringle or Cringley Moor, or if one wants to sound particularly archaic, Crannimoor. A Victorian writer hailing from the West Riding once claimed this was pronounced “Creenay.” As for its origin, the modern thinking is that it comes from the Old Norse ‘kringla,’ meaning a “circle.” However, the ever-reliable Reverend R. C. Atkinson, walking…

  • The Cleveland Hills on a Myst-Hakel Morning

    The Cleveland Hills on a Myst-Hakel Morning

    I slogged up through the old whinstone quarry, staring at the ground, my thoughts elsewhere. I braced myself to find the usual rubbish left behind by quad bikers, as if the world is their personal skip. I could hear them active yesterday. The frost-covered, sterile earth stretched ahead, with the bikers’ berms and humps standing…

  • A Slog up Roseberry Topping and a Nod to Pagan Roots

    A Slog up Roseberry Topping and a Nod to Pagan Roots

    I could claim it was a brisk dash up Roseberry Topping this morning, but in truth, it was more of a plodding trudge. Perhaps it only felt that way because I foolishly dressed for winter, not realising it would be unseasonably warm for Christmas Eve. This is the view from the summit, looking down on…

  • A Ruined Shelter, a Romantic Name, and some Random Latin

    A Ruined Shelter, a Romantic Name, and some Random Latin

    An opportunistic photograph, captured during a rare moment when the winter sun managed to pierce the unrelenting gloom of an overcast day. Here I am on Cold Moor—or, if you are feeling fanciful, Mount Vittoria Plantation. I prefer the latter; it has that pretentious 19th-century flair. This narrow strip of heather moor overlooks the Donna…

  • The Scaur—Musings on Glaciers and Randklufts

    The Scaur—Musings on Glaciers and Randklufts

    I revisited an old stomping ground today—a route I came to know far too well during the 2001 Foot and Mouth epidemic, when it was the only slice of countryside not off-limits. Back then, it was decorated with the charred remains of several burnt-out cars, but these have now been swapped for a battalion of…

  • An Overlooked Old Quarry on Scarth Wood Moor

    An Overlooked Old Quarry on Scarth Wood Moor

    What a difference from yesterday morning, with super lighting on Scarth Wood Moor. Here we have a disused sandstone quarry, now absorbed into the landscape, grazed by sheep and cattle. According to the National Park Heritage Records, it dates to the early 19th century. Meanwhile, the National Trust, who actually own the moor, appear to…

  • From Beak Hills to the Cotswolds: A Tale of Unequal Farming

    From Beak Hills to the Cotswolds: A Tale of Unequal Farming

    Cringle Moor, as seen from Cold Moor across the eastern sweep of Raisdale. Below sits Beak Hills farm, your archetypal North York Moors operation. According to their website, they mostly breed sheep on 125 acres of valley pasture, with another 300 acres of shared grazing rights on Cold Moor. They have also embraced modern farming…

  • Jackson’s Bank—Medieval Trod

    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…

  • Raw Impressions: Cleveland Hills Above a Blanket of Mist

    Raw Impressions: Cleveland Hills Above a Blanket of Mist

    Certainly, nothing whatsoever about this view of the Cleveland Hills evokes the word “recrudescence”—though it is oddly suited to today’s general mood. In the 20th century, “recrudescence” came to signify the reappearance of anything thoroughly unpleasant after a period of respite—war, plague, outrage, crime. The 18th-century meaning was more viscerally satisfying: wounds “breaking out afresh,”…

  • Of Cloud and Candle-Rushes: Taxation, Tradition, and a Dreich Brian’s Pond

    Of Cloud and Candle-Rushes: Taxation, Tradition, and a Dreich Brian’s Pond

    What a profoundly uninspiring morning it has been—so much dull, grey cloud blanketing the Cleveland Hills that one might have suspected a conspiracy to make photography impossible. Still, in search of a morsel of interest, I plodded resolutely up to Brian’s Pond, which is quite possibly named in honour of that storied Irish figure, “Bryan…