Category: North York Moors
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Glorious winter sunshine
Today nature was in her calmer moods with snowdrops covering the woodland floor, the sun shining under a cloudless blue sky, giving a primaveral feel to the winter’s day. With the passing of high noon, basking in the warmth, the ‘keepers burning the heather try to hide the sun and raise the temperature still. Every…
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Roseberry from Nunthorpe
An early reference to Roseberry Topping in literature appears in an 18th-century farce by Stockton-on-Tees born Joseph Reed “The Register Office”. His play was first performed in 1761 at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane and is the story of, what in modern terms we would call an employment agency where workers and prospective employers were…
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Roseberry Hermitage
At one time there was once a hermitage on the summit of Roseberry. It was referred to in a letter to Sir Thomas Chaloner (1559 – 1615) by a person with the initials ‘H. TR’ (who remains somewhat of a mystery). The letter was quoted in the ‘The Topographer and Genealogist Volume II’, edited by John Gough…
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Nelly Ayre Foss
Waterfall of the week, Nelly Ayre Foss on West Beck although I prefer the name used upstream, Wheeldale Beck. A magical place especially on a sunny winter’s day but, wanting everything perfect, the sun happened to be directly behind the falls so they are backlit. Not ideal but not too distracting I think. But who…
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Kirkdale Cave
Whilst Cleveland basked in the winter sunshine, the Tabular Hills were covered in a grey corrugated duvet of low wet cloud. I had parked in Fadmoor for a circular wander along dry valleys and field tracks aiming to visit Kirkdale Cave. I’ve never actually seen the cave before and I don’t suppose any bones of…
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“No path” off Aireyholme Lane
It would have been a bit breezy on the top of Roseberry this morning. I was battered coming across Great Ayton Moor heading into the wind. The land far side of the gate is certainly not a path but it is Open Access land all the way to the summit. I think the hawthorn trees…
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At the west end of Scot Crags
Well, it’s Scot Crags according to the first mappers of the Ordnance Survey. Probably better known as Barker’s Crags nowadays. I am looking down on the spur they mapped as Rakes Intake where Snotterdale merges with Scugdale. Scugdale is both an unusual valley and one of contrasts. It is one of the few east-west lying…
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Cairn with two boundary stones
A glorious day. My attention was diverted by a pair of mewing buzzards but they kept too distant for my camera. So back to earth, on Newton Moor, one of a pair of Bronze Age round cairns with two partly buried boundary stones. One is inscribed “TKS 1815” and the other stone “RY 1752” on…
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The Cleveland Dyke
A view north-west from Cliff Ridge along Langbaurgh Ridge and the line of the intrusion of igneous rock known as the Cleveland Dyke. The basaltic rock was intruded as molten magma flowed from a volcanic source near the Island of Mull in Scotland 58 million years ago. It is calculated the flow took up to…
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Falling Foss
One of the most picturesque waterfalls on the North York Moors. Thirty feet high, I have read, and viewed from the top of the deep gorge, the pool at the bottom was tempting. It turned out to be quite an epic. We started 700 metres downstream by a footbridge following a faint path which soon…