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Hob Holes: Where the Hob Lived and the Jet-Diggers Evicted
Runswick Bay takes its character from the Hob Holes, raw wounds in the shale cliffs cut by the North Sea going about its daily vandalism. They are not just the work of water on stone. They are the blank spaces where memory used to live. In those gaps sat the Hob, a local figure of…
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When the Monks Assarted Bilsdale
In windswept Bilsdale, a ring-fence of bank and ditch at Garfitts and a scatter of medieval sherds tell a story not often told. This was not always a quiet dale of lonely farms. For a brief, brittle spell it was a proving ground, a place where organised power tried to turn moor and forest into…
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Shoring up the Leven
I have been fretting about the riverbank by Holmes Bridge at Little Ayton for a while now, the way you fret about a loose tooth. Each flood leaves that electricity pole looking more exposed, more hopeful of a swim. And every time the river rises, the public footpath from the bridge looks closer to stepping…
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More Than a Water Tower
At first glance, this stone tower at Ingleby Arncliffe looks like a small, rugged castle left behind by history. It is easy to imagine it as a lookout, guarding the Cleveland Hills. But its story is not about defence or conflict. It is about hope, craft, and a quiet promise made for the future. This…
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Solmōnaþ — Cake, Mud, and Lowered Hopes
It is Solmōnaþ. Cake Month. A rare cause for cheer in the damp gloom of February. In the Anglo-Saxon calendar, Solmōnaþ sat where February is now. It marked a time when offerings were made to pagan gods, back when England was less Christian and more heathen. The idea was simple. Feed the gods and hope…
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The Conservation Walk That Has Vanished
It seems fitting to be posting this at the end of January 2026, a month that quietly marked a profound centenary. One hundred years ago, Section 193 of the Law of Property Act 1925 gave the public a legal right to access around a third of the common land in England and Wales. For the…
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Letting Sheep Be Sheep
I cannot quite tell whether these sheep huddling under the gorse to dodge the sleet are tough old “moor” sheep or soft “lowland” types, but either way they carry the usual reputation. Sheep, like cows, belch methane, methane warms the planet, and that is that. Or so we thought. A study with the esoteric name…
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When Eskdale Held Its Breath
A dreich day in Bransdale, so I am clinging to a favourite photo from yesterday, taken high above the clouds under a blue sky. It does the soul some good to watch mist creep up the dale while back home in the Tees valley was wrapped in damp fog like a forgotten parcel, although I…
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In Search of a Broch, Finding a Bog
My mission today was to chase down a tiny mystery. On the O.S. map it appeared as two neat black circles, concentric, barely a millimetre across and quietly absent from the legend. Naturally this would not do. The puzzle was set by a friend, so thanks to Lenny for the nudge that sent me off…
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The Hidden Life of Newton Wood
All was quiet in Newton Wood today. No leaves rustling, barely a bird bothering to sing. Colour drained away. Even the fungi looked as if they had clocked off. Appearances mislead. Fungi are like icebergs. What shows above ground, the mushrooms, is only the fruit. The real organism is the mycelium, a vast web beneath…
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