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The Last Traces of the Belmont Ironstone Mine
Green “Yorkshire” fields in early spring, and nothing here looks remotely industrial. Yet the three red-brick Edwardian cottages sitting neatly in the middle distance were built for the men who ran Belmont Ironstone Mine, and the large brick building in the distance was once the stables for the horses that worked underground. The large concrete…
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Reflections on Sobriety
A day of rest after yesterday’s National Trust volunteering. The body, it turns out, has opinions. So — the River Leven at Great Ayton. A stone wall keeps the High Street dry and throws its reflection onto water so calm it seems almost embarrassed to move. Daffodils and a pink-blossomed tree do their best to…
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The Duncombe Drive: Lost in Plain Sight
Repairs to fencing offered a rare glimpse into a part of Bransdale not open to the public. The photograph shows Hall Plantation, where a line of beech trees accentuates what is clearly an old trackway, its course still visible beneath a deep carpet of last year’s leaves. The track has been sitting quietly here since…
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Lady Day: When England Turned Over a New Leaf
March 25th was not just another date. It was the day England once held its breath, then exhaled. Until 1751, Lady Day was the legal New Year. Winter ended. Debts were called in. Contracts expired. The nation lurched back to life like a cart horse after a long cold stable. Rents fell due, farm tenancies…
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The Pale — Playground of the Percys
Viewed here from Percy Cross Rigg, Capt. Cook’s Monument is just about visible on the highest point of Easby Moor. This eastern end, in the parish of Kildale, is known as Coate Moor and those unforested fields on the spur are labelled “The Pale” on Ordnance Survey maps. It is a relic of one of…
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Who Gets the Land? Everyone Wants a Piece
Britain has a land problem. There is not enough of it, what there is in the wrong place, and far too many people want it for far too many things — housing, food, energy, nature, and apparently shooting birds for fun. The Government has finally noticed and published its first Land Use Framework: a long-term…
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Farndale: Rather Less Yellow Than Expected
Last Friday’s trip to Farndale, home of the famous wild daffodils was, if truth be told, rather a mixed blessing. The display was, shall we say, not quite the riot of yellow one might have hoped for. The far bank of the River Dove, where the public cannot go, looked considerably more impressive. Years of…
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Iron Age on the Moors: Percy Rigg’s Hidden Houses
For centuries, five Iron Age round houses sat quietly on this ridge in North Yorkshire, and nobody noticed. Not bad for a neighbourhood that was probably occupied for over 300 years. The site was only spotted in 1962, when Fred Proud of Sleddale Farm found it and reported it to local archaeologists Roland Close and…
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Fog, a Hollow Way and a Reservoir That Never Was
The watershed between the River Esk and River Rye tributaries was today more than a geographical line. It was a weather frontier. While Castleton and Westerdale basked in spring sunshine a mile or two away to the north, Farndale sulked under a damp mist so thick you could almost wring it out. From the aptly…
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Hanging Stone Dam and the Fall of Sir Joseph
The pond in this photo was built in 1880 by Sir Joseph Whitwell Pease to power hydraulic machinery at his Home Farm half a kilometre downstream. It served that purpose until the 1950s, after which it became a swamp. Local volunteers restored it in 2004/5. Known originally as Hanging Stone Dam, it sits at the…
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