#bilsdale — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #bilsdale, aggregated by home.social.
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The Great Heather Gamble
Europe is burning, and nobody has bothered telling the weather. Wildfires in Spain and France are breaking records while the Cairngorms also feels the heat. The North York Moors is not a stranger to this chaos. A massive blaze last year turned twenty-five square kilometres of one moor into a cinder.
The Moorland Association has ...http://www.fhithich.uk/2026/07/28/the-great-heather-gamble/
#Bilsdale #NorthYorkMoors #UrraMoor #ecology #GrouseMoorManagement
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Cock Howe — After the Fall
One thing that does not endear me to the moors is the endless run of gamekeepers’ access tracks. Miles of the stuff. Dull to run, duller to walk, but perfect for cycling, except our creaking access laws say no, thank you very much.
One such track runs along the skyline of Bilsdale West Moor, from the Bilsdale Tramsitter Station to Green Howe. Y ... -
Chop Gate: Pedlars, Vikings and a Farmer’s Opinion
Chop Gate sits quietly in Bilsdale until the TT roars through and reminds everyone it exists. But the village has a quieter puzzle that never goes away: nobody can agree on what to call it, or what it means.
Travel guides and linguists will tell you confidently that it is pronounced “Ch ...
http://www.fhithich.uk/2026/04/11/chop-gate-pedlars-vikings-and-a-farmers-opinion/
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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 e ...
http://www.fhithich.uk/2026/03/25/lady-day-when-england-turned-over-a-new-leaf/
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Wath Hill
A view from the rear of Cranimoor, or Cringle Moor as modern maps insist on calling it. Raisdale splits into two narrow arms, held apart by the modest bulk of Wath Hill, a hill so thoroughly “improved” for pasture that every trace of wild moor has been rubbed out. No heather, no grouse. Pheasants aplenty instead.
Wath is an oddity. It seems to bar the valley like a stubborn gate, yet ...
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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 profit and permanence.
The thirtee ...
http://www.fhithich.uk/2026/02/04/when-the-monk-assarted-bilsdale/
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Billy’s Dyke on the High Moor
Just after the midwinter feast of 1070, William the Conqueror, fresh from Christmas in York, marched north to settle a score. His garrison at Durham had been slaughtered, and he meant to answer blood with fire. What followed was ruin on a grand scale. Villages, farms, whole stretches of countryside were wiped clean, with no one l ...
http://www.fhithich.uk/2025/12/19/billys-dyke-on-the-high-moor/
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The “T” Stones of Bilsdale West Moor
The North York Moors are littered with boundary stones, each one usually stamped with a dutiful little initial, the sort of thing an aristocratic landowner might choose when feeling terribly important. An “M” for Manners, an “F” for Feversham, a “CD” for Charles Duncombe. All very neat, all very tidy. Then you stumble upo ...
http://www.fhithich.uk/2025/12/10/the-t-stones-of-bilsdale-west-moor/
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Urra: What’s in a Name?
Urra. A name that sounds as if the wind itself whispered it across the moor. Once, according to Richard Blakeborough, this lonely hamlet in upper Bilsdale had a blacksmith and an inn – the twin hearts of any small community. Now it is little more than a name on a map, clinging to the edge of the North York Moors.
Its origins are murky, and sch ...
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Easterside: Where a German Bomber Crashed
Easterside Hill stands guard over Bilsdale, yet is all too often passed by without a second thought. Perhaps it is too familiar, or perhaps the eye is stolen by the graceful turns of the B1257.
Its striking form is no accident. A crown of Oolitic Limestone sits upon Calcareous Grit, itself resti ...
http://www.fhithich.uk/2025/09/19/easterside-where-a-german-bomber-crashed/
#Bilsdale #EastersideHill #NorthYorkMoors #Ryedale #history #WW2
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Seave Green: Through the Lens, Again
It is always a letdown to return home thinking the day’s photograph might be worth something, only to discover I have stood in the same spot, pointing the camera in precisely the same direction, years before. So it went with this view of Seave Green in Bilsdale.
Today, Seave Green passes for a hamlet, though it has never be ...
http://www.fhithich.uk/2025/07/20/seave-green-through-the-lens-again/
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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 ...
#Bilsdale #ClevelandHills #GarfittGap #NorthYorkMoors #19thcentury #history #WW1
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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, ...
http://www.fhithich.uk/2025/04/03/the-ancient-hollow-way-to-nowhere-in-particular/
#Bilsdale #NorthYorkMoors #Urra #etymology #history #mediaeval
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Scorched Earth: A Cool Burn on Hasty Bank
Ah yes, the wonders of the so-called “cool burn”—a delightful little exercise in setting fire to the heather in supposedly small, controlled patches. The idea, we are told, is to clear out the old heather without charring the peat or moss underneath, thereby avoiding carbon loss and allowing for ...
http://www.fhithich.uk/2025/03/18/scorched-earth-a-cool-burn-on-hasty-bank/
#Bilsdale #HastyBank #NorthYorkMoors #ecology #GrouseMoorManagement
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Urra Moor on Pancake Day
Up on Urra Moor this morning, the sun made an appearance, but the wind still had a bite to it. This is the view across Bilsdale to Hasty Bank. If you strain your eyes, you might just make out Roseberry Topping in the far distance.
I suppose I must acknowledge that it is Pancake Day—though if one wishes to sound more religious, you might call it S ...
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The Sheep of Clough
A heap of moss-covered sandstone, once a farmstead, now a sheep stronghold. This is Clough, where the path from Bilsdale Moor West meets another from Staindale to Raisdale Mill. In 1781, William Hunton lived here, followed in 1826 by John Garbutt, who managed thirty-five acres. Today, the only residents are the sheep, who seem perfectly content and reluctant t ...
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The Witch-Mare of Orra—A Forgotten Nightmare Myth
Ah, Urra—barely discernible through the oppressive cloud that choked my aimless trudge around the moor it so generously lends its name to. It is also the setting for the utterly enthralling tale of the Witch-Mare of Orra. A legend I have alluded to with tiresome frequency, though clearly without bothering to grasp its finer point ...
http://www.fhithich.uk/?p=37219
#Bilsdale #NorthYorkMoors #UrraMoor #folklore #RichardBlakeborough
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Brume, Roke, and Other Vapourous Delights
There is something magical about mist creeping up the dales of the North York Moors, at least you’re being sentimental. Behind me, the mist—sorry, ‘brume’—was crawling up the Vale of Mowbray, but that was less of a spectacle than this show over Raisdale and Bilsdale.
Speaking of brume, it is the ideal word for this frosty vapour, with roots in the Roman term br ...
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Bilsdale and the Curious Journey of Road Salt
Another thrilling morning on the North York Moors. Freezing temperatures, frost blanketing the valley, and snow still stubbornly clinging to the high ground. How enchanting. This is a view of Bilsdale from Hasty Bank.
For days now, the gritters have been tirelessly scattering salt as if the very fate of civilisation depends on it. It reminds me of when I trudged past a to ...
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Raisdale’s Constablewick and the Bones of Bert
This morning was cold, but not that cold. No puddles bore that brittle layer of “cat ice,” and the dead Bracken fronds remained frost-free. Compare that to last Saturday, when midnight brought a sultry 15°C, according to the car thermometer—a temperature fit for short sleeves. Earlier that day, as Storm Bert howled and hurled snow, the mercury had plunged to zer ...
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Hasty Bank and an Old Gatepost
Whenever I‘m Out & About, I rarely start out with any sort of plan. There might be a vague idea of a route, but more often than not, I just make it up as I go along. Some might call that reckless, others might deem it inconsiderate or just plain annoying, but I like to think of myself as simply adaptable. It is the way I have always been, and I have no intention of chang ...
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From Drainage to Divination: The Cheshire Stone’s Secrets
I recently stumbled upon the theory that a stone – the Cheshire, or perhaps the Cheddar Stone as some insist on calling it – perched on on the edge of Urra Moor, has a natural basin which has been carefully modified in prehistoric times by the addition of a notch to channel the water outflow towards Garfit Gap and th ...
http://www.fhithich.uk/?p=36419
#Bilsdale #GarfittGap #NorthYorkMoors #wainstones #folklore #Prehistory
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From Widheris to Wether House: A Farmstead’s History
On Wetherhouse Moor, nature is quietly concealing the remains of a post-medieval farmstead beneath the watchful eye of a solitary sycamore. Of the original three ranges, little can be discerned now, save for a crumbling gable end of a barn. It has, for more than a century, since the last tenants left, been steadily yield ...
http://www.fhithich.uk/?p=36328
#Bilsdale #FangdaleBeck #NorthYorkMoors #19thcentury #history #mediaeval
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A Stone in the Heather
While the heather is in full bloom, it seems absurd not to be up on the moors. This boundary stone, standing proud over the heather, is marked on its Bilsdale side with the inscription "FEVERSHAM 1848," a name requiring little introduction. It refers, of course, to William Duncombe, the 2nd Baron Feversham, whose seat was at Duncombe Park, and who owned much of Bilsdale and t ...
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Boundaries in Stone
Dry stone walls stand as testament to the enduring craftsmanship of generations past. They are a quintessential feature of the North York Moors and other rocky regions of the British Isles. From Cornwall and the Cotswolds, to Scotland and Ireland, these walls served as swift and sturdy field boundaries, surpassing the time it would take for hedges or trees to mature.
The technique of dr ...
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Low Mill, Bilsdale
Low Mill, a small corn mill presently under private ownership, stands beside the swift waters of the River Seph amidst the charming valley of Bilsdale. Historical records date its inception to the 16th century, though subtle signs suggest its presence may extend as early as the 12th century, coinciding with the establishment of Rievaulx Abbey.
The mill likely begun as a simple single-story ...
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Weighill’s Plantation
What a dreich morning to inaugurate the month of April. 'Pinch punch, first of the month,' as the old adage goes, though it hardly seems an occasion for mirth.
The ragged pines emerge as solitary figures amidst the enveloping mist, remnants of Weighill’s Plantation, which would, if not for the mist, command a view over Bilsdale Hall. Which begs the question: who was this Weighill?
A cursory ...
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A View from Wath Hill and Echoes of Life at Clough House
A view of Wath Hill from above the remains of the old farmstead of Clough.
Just a handful of moss-covered stones indicate where Clough House farm used to stand. It's simple to overlook its past as a bustling farm, a family home. A solitary out-building still stands, its roof clad in corrugated sheeting. The rest of the stone f ...
http://www.fhithich.uk/?p=35056
#Bilsdale #NorthYorkMoors #Raisdale #19thcentury #20thCentury
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Cold Moor Lane — Hollow Way and Medieval Trod
Taking a respite from the biting easterly breeze while in the shelter of Cold Moor Lane, a sunken bridleway climbing out of Chop Gate, a debate unfolded about its origins.
Well, if we concede that its sunken characteristic stems from centuries of human and animal movement along this route, then I suppose one could argue it's manmade. Althoug ...
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Easterside Hill, the sleeping behemoth
It was a magical moment, ascending from the sombre depths of Bilsdale up Newgate Bank, when we emerged into a realm of brilliance and lucidity, with a cloudless azure sky adorning the western horizon.
And the formidable hogback of Easterside Hill loomed above the cloud like a sleeping behemoth. While the mist persisted in the dale below, swirling gen ...