Category: North York Moors
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Furze: Fodder, Folklore, and the Smell of Coconut
A sudden change in the weather, as if the sky has grown bored. No more sun-drenched optimism; just a grey sheet of disinterest overhead. Still, Roseberry manages to look charming, despite being surpassed by the only plant capable of making scrubland smell like a tropical cocktail — gorse. Its yellow blooms, reeking of coconut and…
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Wheeldale Lodge: From Shooting to Youth Hostel to Private Residence
My memories of Wheeldale Lodge are, regrettably, a jumble. One of the earliest involves the unremarkable joy of dunking sore feet in Wheeldale Beck after a needlessly long march across the Lyke Wake Walk. This was in 1969, and my 17-year-old self had been trudging for twelve and a half hours. The route comes down…
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Bransdale’s Dry-Stone Walls: Standing Strong, Sometimes
Dry-stone walls are everywhere on the North York Moors and in other rocky parts of Britain, mostly because they are built to last and farmers found plenty of stones lying around. The concept is hardly original; versions of these walls have existed since Neolithic times, and from Europe to Africa. The idea is simple: pile…
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The Ancient Hollow-Way to Nowhere in Particular
The Public Bridleway from the hamlet of Urra winds its way up to another Right of Way that follows Billy’s Dyke, that Bronze Age boundary fortification of earth and stone. This grand construction supposedly gets its name from Billy Norman, better known elsewhere as William the Conqueror, who apparently managed to get lost in a…
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Sunset Over Kikdale and a Sporting Legacy
I suppose I’m not necessarily a diurnal sort of person. But at this time of year, I have yet to shake off the winter habit of retreating indoors as soon as the temperature drops and dusk approaches. So, finding myself on Park Nab, looking over Kildale at sunset yesterday, was something of an anomaly. The…
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Cleveland: A County No One Wanted
All Fools’ Day 1974—the perfect occasion for bureaucratic tomfoolery. On this particular day, the North Riding of Yorkshire relinquished half of Roseberry Topping to the nascent “County of Cleveland.” A curious choice of name, given that “Cleveland” means “hilly land” in Old English, whereas this new county was largely flat. Nonetheless, the boundary was drawn,…
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The Government’s Proposals to Curb Heather Burning
Gisborough Moor, from across Sleddale, is marked by neat, rectangular patches of scorched heather. These are “swiddens,” the product of controlled burning, a practice designed to create the perfect environment for grouse. The idea is simple: burn the old heather, let fresh shoots grow, and produce an abundance of birds ready to be shot in…
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Surveying the Past Before the Grouse Take Over
The final day of trudging around Brown Hill, dutifully noting the remains of Bronze Age cairnfields, settlements, and funerary monuments. By Monday, the moor must be left undisturbed so the Grouse can multiply, ensuring there are enough targets for the guns on the Glorious Twelfth. The weather, as ever, was obliging. No rain was forecast,…
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Lake Greenhow: A Forgotten Relic of the Ice Age
Yesterday’s post led me to glaciers, glacial lakes, and the like. At Botton Head, my imagination ran riot. Difficult as it is to picture now, 10,000 years ago, a glacier covered the Tees Valley before me. The ice sheet, it is well-known, never quite managed to smother the North York Moors. So, naturally, I wondered…
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Newtondale: A Gorge Too Big for Its Stream
North Dale sits at the top end of Newtondale, a gorge that stretches all the way to Pickering. Newtondale is an oddity, or so everyone says, because the little Pickering Beck, which now trickles through it, could never have gouged out such a deep, narrow valley. At its tightest points, the valley is only 500…