Category: Great Ayton
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Smoke Signals from Great Ayton: A Meteorological Puzzle
I took this photograph of the large square-cut recess in the sandstone cap atop Roseberry summit. Clearly crafted by human hands, in my imagination, I’ve had it down as the likely spot for the hermitage and smith’s forge mentioned in a 17th-century letter. However, I might be wildly off the mark, considering the extensive quarrying…
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A Boxing Day Tradition — The Hunt
I chanced upon the Great Ayton Boxing Day Hunt today. A traditional affair, you know. Had completely slipped my mind. Christmas, a season steeped in tradition, yet this one leaves a sour taste. Every Boxing Day, the hunt assembles at the High Green in Great Ayton. Same old spectacle of well-appointed riders, splendid horses, and…
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A Forgotten Quarry—With a view of Roseberry
A broken down dry-stone wall enticed me to scramble over for a gander and I stumbled upon an old sandstone quarry I never knew existed with a view of Roseberry from an angle I’ve not seen before. Ah, the uncomplicated pleasures of discovery. It wasn’t a large quarry, and a quick count reveals it to…
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Raddle me this
I awoke under the weather, got talked into taking a Covid test. Lo-and-behold, the little red line made its appearance, and my ailment took a turn for the worse. Fresh air, my trusty remedy, beckoned. Raindrops drumming on the windowpanes, I embarked on a brief, low-level stroll. “Raddle,” a peculiar term. Readers of Thomas Hardy…
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“Gerroff Moy Land!” and don’t even look at it
On this rather dreich morning, I found myself compelled to focus my photographic endeavours closer to home. When I first moved into the village, the scene before me would have been an open field stretching toward a gate nestled in the distant hedge. However, as time has gone by, the path has become enclosed by…
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Late afternoon on Cliff Rigg
A morning spent volunteering alongside the National Trust, cutting sycamore saplings in Cliff Rigg Wood. Not exactly a photogenic opportunity, but later the dog was insistent that we ascend the ridge to bask in the waning afternoon sun. There, the lighting nicely highlighted a strange remnant from a bygone industrial era, the rocky pinnacle once…
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Storm Babet
A deserted High Street in Great Ayton. Not a soul in sight. Everyone’s hunkered down. For me, a pluvious and tempestuous battle up Roseberry, though I skipped the summit. A short walk, leaving the rest of the day for housework. There’s an Old English word that suits our usual cleaning routine — ‘scurryfunge.’ It means…
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Sunday Morning Coming Down
Though Johnny Cash’s song is as clear as crystal about solitude, the blues, and the foggy haze of a Sunday morning after a wild Saturday night, it oddly echoes the serenity of this particular Sunday morning, which coincided with the first frost of the season, a gentle nudge reminding us of the impending winter’s chills.…
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Forgotten Fields and Stolen Commons: The Tragic Consequences of Enclosure
On this day in the year 1845, Parliament passed the Inclosure Act 1845, an ominous piece of legislation that concluded a grim transformation to the country. This Act, a tool of the powerful, wrested away the public land and enshrined the authority of enclosure commissioners, who, free from the yoke of parliamentary scrutiny, could enclose…
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Rediscovering a ford on the River Leven: last captured in 1998
The other day, out of nowhere, I was jolted back to the year 1998 when a long-forgotten photograph emerged out of cyberspace. It shows the ford on the River Leven, nestled gracefully into the grounds of the Friends’ School at Great Ayton. Astonishingly, I have no recollection of ever capturing this moment, and the realisation…