Category: North York Moors
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Harpley’s Well
Came across this peculiar sandstone structure while running through Heathwaite on the way back to Swainby. The lintel over the dilapidated door is carved “Harpley’s Well 1880”. Opposite Harpley House on Holgate Lane. It seems such a shame that the well has been neglected. I have no idea who Harpley was. Open Space Web-Map builder…
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Ruin, Mount Vittoria
A well-visited ruin on Mount Vittoria, or Cold Moor to use its modern name. I prefer the more romantic 19th-century name. A name which conjures up a vision of a son or husband lost in a faraway land when Wellington’s forces routed the French under Bonaparte in the Battle of Vittoria. Pure speculation of course…
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Odin’s Little Brother
Just 20m shorter than its big brother, the climb up Little Roseberry is just as draining on tired legs. Walkers on the Cleveland Way have to descend it and then climb back up as part of the extension up Odin’s Hill, Roseberry Topping. Open Space Web-Map builder Code
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Ayton Banks Alum Works
A cold, overcast day. The fresh snow of the last few days has aged into a dirty wet surface. I found myself above Gribdale looking down on the heavily worked hillside of Cockshaw where the snow accentuated the contours of the Ayton Banks Alum Works that operated for a mere nine years in the latter…
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Spring has sprung
The first day of Spring. Meteorologically speaking. The 1st of March. An arbitrary date that the Met Office has declared for their statistics. More snow overnight with strong winds. Yet in a sheltered hollow of Newton Wood, a snow-encrusted oak sapling with a stubborn leaf still clinging on. An appropriate poem for this day by…
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On Ayton Bank
The last day of February and I had had tentative thoughts of cycling into Middlesbrough to photograph the Newport Bridge for it was on this day in 1934 that the bridge was opened by the future King George VI. But more snow overnight put paid to that idea, so Plan B: head up on to…
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Thundersnow?
The “Beast from the East” arrived in North Yorkshire as a lamb. No worse than a normal winter. In The Sun today there is an article about thundersnow, apparently a rare phenonmena in the UK when thunderstorms occurs in cold winter air and rain falls as snow. This may well have been the front of…
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Raven’s Scar
A north facing sandstone crag overlooking Great Broughton on Hasty Bank. On the 1857 map named as Baven’s Scar which I think must have been an error. Open Space Web-Map builder Code
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Swainby Shooting House
Just over a year to the day (well three days actually) and I find myself again at this remote spot on the vast expanse of heather moorland to the east of Osmotherley. But what a difference in the weather. Clag down and a heavy drizzle. The shooting house stands at a height of 319m above…
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Siberia
Greenhow Botton, often known as Midnight Corner. Felling has opened up new views. Not such a gloomy place. And somewhere in the cleared forest stood the temporary construction camp for the Ingleby Manor ironstone mine. It was named as Siberia and later reused for construction workers of the railway incline to Rosedale. Open Space Web-Map…