Tag: 19th-century
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Jack’s Short Life: From Rural Bilsdale to the Trenches of the Great War
A view from Cold Moor to Garfit Gap. The row of sheds belong to the industrial pheasant rearing farm at Whingroves, a shining example of rural diversification, if one defines success as raising battery-bred birds for folk to shoot. In 1896, however, it was just another typical mixed farm on the North York Moors, run…
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A Dog’s Grim Discovery: A Moorsholm Murder
It began, as many grim tales do, with a dog. One cold March morning in 1857, Joseph Green, a farmer in the quiet village of Moorsholmâtucked between Guisborough and Whitbyâwas startled when his dog returned home with a gruesome prize clamped in its jaws: the leg and foot of a child. The horror of the…
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Storms, Sunlight, and a Trespass to Remember
Given the grim weather forecast of strong winds, we opted for a walk that would not risk life and limb. The summit of Latrigg offered a theatrical view: a single beam of sunlight, no doubt feeling very pleased with itself, pierced through dark clouds to spotlight a few houses near Keswick, with Bleaberry Fell lurking…
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Lealholm and the story of John Castillo, Poet and Stonemason
Lealholm developed around the first place you could sensibly cross the River Esk, just downstream of the dramatic gorge of Crunkly Ghyll. In the good old days, people splashed through a ford until someone finally built this graceful 17th-century bridge, which managed to survive the disastrous 1930 floodâunlike the bridges further downstream in Glaisdale, Egton,…
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Hummerseaâs Lost Industry Beneath Jurassic Cliffs
On the Cleveland Way, below Hummersea Farm, a Public Footpath descends toward what was, as a Victorian postcard once called it, a âbeach.â The path has been generously cleared of bracken and other wild vegetation, and a few strategically placed trail markers beckoned me downward. Naturally, I followed. But halfway down, at a shiny new…
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Slacks Wood Quarry And a Stream of Many Names
A dreich morning. Rain, wind and low cloud forced me to keep low, sticking to the woods where I could at least avoid the worst of the weather. This meant I had little choice but to focus on the minutiae. Hence this stream. It cannot even decide on a single name. Near its source on…
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Charles Goughâs Fatal Ascent and his Dogâs Vigil
It has been some time since I last dragged myself up Helvellyn via Striding Edge. Definitely before the pandemic chaos. This photograph, taken around midday, gazes slightly east of south. St. Sunday Crag and Fairfield flaunt a dusting of snow. A marvellous day: cloudless peaks, sub-zero temperatures, and a wind that was brisk enough to…
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Beldi Hill Smelt Mill
Following my exhausting cycle ride around Swaledale yesterday, I wisely opted not to stray far today. So instead, here is another photograph from that trip. I was aware of Swaledaleâs lead mining legacy, but stumbling upon this particular site was an unexpected delight. The Beldi Hill Smelt Mill sits awkwardly wedged into the hillside, just…
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Thwaiteâs Gift to the Natural World: The Lives of the Kearton Brothers
A typical Swaledale landscape: stone-built cottages in Thwaite and those endlessly fascinating dry-stone walls dissecting the surrounding fields. Many of the walls date from the 18th century, but, alas, there is the obligatory parked car ruining the scene. Otherwise, one imagines this view would be instantly familiar to Thwaiteâs greatest sons, Richard and Cherry Kearton.…
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Crime, Concealment, and Moral Panic in Newton-under-Roseberry
On the 6th of November, 1847, the Yorkshire Gazette regaled its readers with a dark tale from the village of Newton-under-Roseberry. âConcealment of Child Birth. â On Saturday last, the body of a newly born female child was found in a privy, in the village of Newton-under-Roseberry, by a person named Jackson, who nailed fast…