Category: North York Moors
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Hagg's Gate
I didn’t realise it at the time but this is an almost opposite view to a photo I took earlier in the summer. I am on Hasty Bank, one of the bumps of the Cleveland Hills, and looking down onto the col at the top of Clay Bank on a contrasty early evening with bright skies and…
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Yorkshire Fog
A couple of months ago, in the summer, I heard an assessor telling the Duke of Edinburgh group I was supervising that the grass that which grows in profusion on disturbed or burnt areas on the moors is called ‘Yorkshire Haze’. An interesting snippet of a local plant name I thought and locked it away in my grey cells. I…
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Quakers' Causeway
One of the best preserved pannierways on the North York Moors. It crosses Commondale Moor in a south westerly direction to White Cross. Its true purpose is not known. And difficult to date with any degree of confidence. Perhaps it is one of the pannierways mentioned in the foundation document of Guisborough Priory in the 12th…
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Great Ayton Moor
There’s an old adage that is said in all farming communities, from Scotland, to Wales and to Cumbria: Where there’s bracken there’s gold; where there’s gorse there’s silver; where there’s heather there’s poverty At first it’s hard to see the reasoning. Bracken is allelopathic, it produces toxins in the soil which prevents other plants from germinating. Hardly…
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Highcliff Nab
The heather is just about past its sell by date. A view east from Percy Rigg towards Highcliffe or Codhill Farm and Highcliff Nab.
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Last Light on Roseberry
Dashed up to Gribdale to catch the sunset but it somewhat fizzled out. A few people on Roseberry had the same idea.
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Gurnal Dubs
A cracking morning on Potter Fell in the foothills of the Lakes north of Kendal. A quiet area largely ignored by those in a hurry to get into the big fells. A dub is a small pond and there were indeed originally three dubs until Richard Fothergill II built a dam to create the much larger lake of just under eight acres we see today.…
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Greenhow Bank
A sultry evening view towards Botton Head where the forestry plantations are systematically being clear felled. The Ingleby Incline, a former railway incline, can be seen ascending the bank right to left. Greenhow Bank is capped by a series of crags and rock outcrops over a distance of a hundred metres or so. This crag, with…
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Pond on Great Ayton Moor
For all the whinging about the British weather there are not many days in the year when I actually end up running in the rain. I did so this morning. With poor visibility I headed up onto Great Ayton Moor intending to look at the heather and ended up by this pond. I’m not sure if it’s natural…
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Red Barns
I read somewhere that if Gertrude Bell had been born a man she would be as well known today as Lawrence of Arabia. Even so a film ‘Queen of the Desert’ has been made of her life played by Nicole Kidman. Writer, traveller and mountaineer, Gertrude survived more than 50 hours on a rope on…