Volunteering with the National Trust at the furthest corner of what must be their remotest property.
The task today was to repair the post and wire fencing along their boundary with Newgate Foot farm and to remove any overhanging branches from the alder and willow tress which align the beck.
The boundary, actually along the centre line of Crosscliff Beck, is also the traditional boundary between the parishes of Lockton and Allerston. Defining a boundary along a natural feature such as a stream is problematic and must always have been so. A stream naturally meanders so does the boundary meander too? I am sure there will be plenty of land law cases covering this issue.
Fencing a wiggly boundary down the centre line of a stream following every sinuosity would also be impractical. The current fence line between the Trust property and the fields of Newgate Foot farm is generally in straight sections crossing the beck several times. I suspect that sometime in the past an agreement was reached between the adjacent landowners to fence this way so that stock from both sides would have access to the stream. But who is responsible for the different sections of the fence?
Up the hill towards Blakey Topping, I was intrigued by some brick and concrete foundations. They looked curiously familar but it wasn’t until I got home that I discovered that I had actually passed by in 2007.
The two bases are the remains of a 2nd World War accommodation hut and water tank. and road at Blakey Topping1North York Moors Historic Environment Record HER No: 18315/18316. A photo I took in 2007 on a cloudless January day shows the accomodation hut extant and was a pretty basic Nissan type. More research might be fruitful but it is tempting to suppose the building were related to the destruction of nearby Blakey House by the military, the subject of a post a couple of weeks ago.
It’s surprising that these bases are listed on the archaeological index for the North York Moors Historic Environment Record (HER) yet since 2007 one building has been demolished.
- 1North York Moors Historic Environment Record HER No: 18315/18316
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