Category: North York Moors
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Summer Solstice on Roseberry
I had not expected the summit to be empty, but the quiet that met me was unexpected. A small crowd sat scattered on the rocks, all facing east, waiting for the sun. They were silent, respectful, marking the midpoint of the year with stillness. Even the stonechats seemed to join in, their song fitting the…
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The Battle for the Barrows
In a tide of encroaching bracken, a few exposed stones on a low rise suggest something hidden just beneath the heather. I am standing on a Round Barrow—one of four, perhaps five—in what was once a Bronze Age cemetery. These circular burial mounds, called barrows or cairns when built of stone, are the most common…
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A Hidden Hollow-Way on Coleson Bank
This morning’s constitutional threw up a surprise. I have used the so-called ‘Green Lane’ on Coleson Bank before, climbing out of Battersby, and even posted about it. You can just make out a glimpse of it in the photo. But I do not go that way often. The narrow gulley attracts off-road motorbikes, which makes…
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Where the Sheep Went Swimming
Sheepwash, ever the draw for Teesside’s day-trippers, earned its name in the most literal way. It was once a place where sheep were hauled into the cold beck and scrubbed clean before shearing. Until the early twentieth century, many farmers still followed the old habit. The idea was to coax new wool to rise from…
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A Lost Boundary Stone of Easby
Out on the moors, boundary stones are everywhere. In the Vale of Cleveland, though, they are relatively rare. I had driven past this one for nearly fifty years before noticing it properly. That only happened last year, when two men were working beside it. I assumed they were putting up a rustic farm sign and…
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What Stripped the Trees? A Woodland Whodunnit
Not my usual kind of post, but here is a photo from Newton Wood showing two oak trees standing side by side. The one on the left looks as it should in mid-June: full canopy, dense green. The one on the right, though, is barely clothed—just a sparse fringe of leaves at the crown, the…
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1772: A Path, A Stone, A Hanging
The so-called “Miners’ Trod”, with Cold Moor rising beyond it, cuts a broad, unsightly scar along the hillside courtesy of the forestry workers. The path’s name comes from the nineteenth-century jet-miners, though it is unlikely they were its first users. That large boulder to the left bears the date “1772” and a scatter of initials,…
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Foxgloves and Stone
The bright purple foxgloves inject a sharp burst of summer colour into this view of Roseberry Topping, the conical shape of which remains instantly recognisable even from its backside. The rough dry-stone wall that cuts across the scene, adds texture and, for me, some interest. Yesterday I was out on the coast with the National…
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The Forgotten Incline of Ingleby Moor
I had heard the National Park was up to something on the old railway incline up Ingleby Moor, so I went to see what the fuss was about. This is not the famous incline that once carried ironstone from Rosedale. It is one that runs roughly 350 metres to the south, leading to the Ingleby…
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The Terminal Moraine at Kildale: Elgee Revisited
An early morning climb up Park Nab before the day’s work began at the Kildale chapel archaeological dig (Out & About passim). I shall wait until later in the season to write properly about that—when we have found something to write about. Instead, as I looked out over the valley, I found myself returning to…