Category: Great Ayton
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Ground hugging mist slowly dissipating as the day warms
Roseberry was busy this morning. Along with the usual Sunday climbers, there was an abseil down the rock face going on and runners in the ‘Hanging Stone Leap‘ race. It was the 31st running of the event, although the inaugural race was run in 1988. So there’s been a bit of a gap. Today’s race…
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The Marwood family
A tranquil River Leven as it flows through Great Ayton below the stone bridge. The edifice on the left is the Marwood primary school which opened in 1851 when the Postgate school closed up the top end of the village. It was endowed by the Rev. George Marwood, a major landowner in the village whose…
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The Ghost of Angrove Hall
About half way between Great Ayton and Stokesley, a new road leads to a caravan park called Angrove Park, crossing the River Leven on a new Bailey bridge. The name is taken from Angrove Hall which was demolished in 1832. It was the scene of a murder and the appearance of a ghost. Sometime in…
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Boundary stone on Easby Moor
A boundary stone on Easby Moor just to the north of Captain Cook’s Monument. I’ve passed this many times before, and may well have posted a photo of it. I tend to forget what I’ve done. Someone pulled me up about that the other day but … hey ho. The stone marks the boundary between…
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All Saints Church, Great Ayton
The architectual historian Nikolaus Pevsner has this to say about All Saints:— Nave and chancel. Norman masonry, Norman chancel N window, Norman nave corbel-table, S doorway with two orders of colonnettes, scallop capitals and zigzag in the arch, blocked N doorway. The chancel arch has scallop and spirally volute capitals. But the nave fenestration is…
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King George on Blackthorn
The flowers of the Blackthorn are, I think, past their prime by now, but this Peacock, one of the aristocrat butterflies according to early entomologists, is feeding on any remaining nectar. In keeping with this blue-blooded theme, the fenmen of Norfolk called the butterfly ‘King George‘. On the other hand, another long-lost dialect name for…
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“Baa, Baa, Black Sheep!”
Ah, warm sunshine and lambs gambolling in the fields. A sure sign that Spring is here. Everyone knows the nursery rhyme. Once said to have been a proletarian cry in the Middle Ages because the tremendous demand for wool meant that farming land had been turned into pasture for sheep. Thousands of farmhands were thrown…
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The Marsh-marigold (Caltha palustris)
A murky morning so my eyes were drawn closer to earth seeking for signs of the vernal awakening. This spring, in the old Slack’s Quarry, seems to be a favourite spot for the marsh marigold, its vivid yellow flowers already in bloom. Wikipedia says it should flower between April and August, but I suspect the…
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Cliff Rigg and Great Ayton from Roseberry
We are informed from Great Ayton near Gisborough, in Yorkshire; that a mad Cat has lately bit two Women, a Horse, and also several other Creatures at some Miles Distance from the Place it belonged to. As it is found by Experience, this Malady (which is much more terrible in the Human Species than Death…
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School Farm
Outline planning permission is currently being applied for a proposed housing development at School Farm in Great Ayton. That’s the farm on the right with the proposed 35 houses extending across the field this side of the houses on Station Road and Dikes Lane. A previous scheme in 2016 was rejected after being vehemently opposed…