#easbymoor — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #easbymoor, aggregated by home.social.
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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 plan to stop ...
http://www.fhithich.uk/2026/03/23/who-gets-the-land-everyone-wants-a-piece/
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Gribdale Gate and the Edge of the Ice
A view from Cliff Rigg looking across to Gribdale Gate and Easby Moor, where the monument to Captain James Cook stands like a stubborn finger pointing at the sky. It is a landscape that seems quiet until you realise how much has happened here while human ...
http://www.fhithich.uk/2026/02/24/gribdale-gate-and-the-edge-of-the-ice/
#CaptCooksMonument #ClevelandHills #CliffRigg #EasbyMoor #Gribdale #NorthYorkMoors #geological #history #prehistoric
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Grief with a Power Tool
In medieval churches, the pauper’s voice often survives with their graffiti remembering loved-ones on the walls and pews — essential memorials for the 95% of society who couldn’t afford headstones. Today, this vernacular memorialisation has turned toxic. In the North York Moors beneath the monument to Capt. Cook, a sandstone crag—naturally beautiful ...
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The Forgotten Lichenologist of Great Ayton: William Mudd
Watching over this popular approach to Easby Moor stand a pair of weathered gateposts, their stone faces mottled with centuries of lichen. They guard the path with the weary dignity of old sentinels, and one cannot help but wonder: did they stand here before Captain ...
http://www.fhithich.uk/2025/11/04/the-forgotten-lichenologist-of-great-ayton-william-mudd/
#CaptCooksMonument #EasbyMoor #GreatAyton #NorthYorkMoors #history
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Swifts on Roseberry, Silence on Easby Moor
It has been a while since I last stood on Roseberry, looking down on clouds. And even longer since I came up here on a Saturday. Most seemed to have taken the yellow thunderstorm warning as a cue to stay indoors. Easby Moor, with its pointed monument to Captain Cook, rose clean above the mist.
...
http://www.fhithich.uk/2025/07/19/swifts-on-roseberry-silence-on-easby-moor/
#CaptCooksMonument #EasbyMoor #NorthYorkMoors #RoseberryTopping
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Obelisks and Obfuscation: Rethinking Cook’s Monument
Three heavily-laden walkers trudge away from Captain Cook’s Monument towards Gribdale. One of them had, moments earlier, stood on the railings and appeared to kiss the obelisk. Quite what prompted this act of reverence is unclear, but it brought to mind an article I once ...
http://www.fhithich.uk/2025/06/23/obelisks-and-obfuscation-rethinking-cooks-monument/
#CaptCooksMonument #EasbyMoor #NorthYorkMoors #CaptJamesCook #history
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Sir George the Dragon Slayer
A picturesque bank of cloud hung over the Cleveland Hills this St. George’s Day morning. A reminder that even the sky can be more subtle than patriotic flag-wavers.
St. George’s Day stirs about as much feeling in me as Carlin Sunday, Plough Monday or Hocktide – curious relics of a myth-soaked past, clung to by those desperate to feel part o ...
http://www.fhithich.uk/2025/04/23/sir-george-the-dragon-slayer/
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A Stone that Once Mattered — A Forgotten Boundary
A low-angle view of a nondescript triangular stone, half-buried in a bleak expanse of dry, brown heather. The pale sandstone stands out against the darker, tangled vegetation, with the occasional patch of golden rushes breaking the monotony. In the distance, the low hi ...
http://www.fhithich.uk/2025/03/21/a-stone-that-once-mattered-a-forgotten-boundary/
#CaptCooksMonument #EasbyMoor #Kildale #NorthYorkMoors #neolithic #Prehistory
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The Wurzelweg of Larner’s Hill
I have walked this path up Larner’s Hill to Captain Cook’s Monument more times than I care to count. Where it winds past Round Hill Wood, exposed tree roots have formed what could generously be called natural steps. Supposedly, this is a Public Bridleway, though one would have to admire the optimism of anyone attempting it on horseback or bicycle.
To the left of the path lies an overgrow ...
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A Red Grouse, the Civil War, and Pennyman‘s Delinquency
This Red Grouse, clearly unimpressed by my presence, stood its ground clucking defiantly as I trudged up Easby Moor. Its red wattle gave away its gender, maybe it was trying to attract a mate. Back in the 17th century, grouse would not have been hunted to the same extent as today but still might have made a convenient snack for any troops trudging ...
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The Light: Conspiracy Bile Delivered Direct to Your Letterbox
There I was, about to embark on my virtuous trek up Roseberry Topping, coat in hand, when a free newspaper crashed through the letterbox like an unwelcome guest. A relic of a bygone era, I thought, since such things had ceased to grace my street years ago. Still, the design carried a whiff of credibility, enough to spark curiosity. A quick ...
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Wellies, Floods, and the Debate over Captain Cook
Billy Connolly once sang about the virtues of wellies: “Cause they keep out the water, and they keep in the smell.” This morning, I was rather pleased to have followed his wisdom, as the path to Little Ayton was a sodden mess thanks to the rain and snowmelt. Here is a photo of the path submerged under floodwater, reflecting the dreary sky above. It is all very poeti ...
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Clouds over the North Sea
Ah, another crisp, cold morning with a blue sky. The sun, though, seemed to be having a leisurely lie-in. The reason all became clear atop Capt. Cook’s Monument. A bank of cumulus cloud hovered menacingly over the North Sea—not the friendly fair weather sort, mind you, but cumulus congestus, puffed up and self-important, like galleons scudding the skies. A storm brewi ...
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The Tory Party, 1832-2024
It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of the Tory Party, beloved overlord, on 5 July 2024 after a long and terminal decline.
The Conservative and Unionist Party was founded in 1832 from an alliance between the Tory and Whig parties to defend the existing order against radical reform. Once widely respected, the party adapted to changes it originally opposed, ult ... -
Capt. Cook’s Monument
The obelisk to Captain James Cook on Easby Moor, a familiar sight from the Cleveland plain. Cook is a local hero. We all know of his epic voyages to the Pacific, they are taught in schools, but his legacy is being reassessed as we look at events at that time through 21st century eyes.
Cook's official reason for leading his first voyage on the Endeavour was to travel to Tahi ...
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A speeat o’ rain
In this month of showers, a spate — a heavy downpour in the Cleveland vernacular — situated somewhere in the vicinity of Great Broughton.
I don't suppose that 'spate' found its place amidst the 40,000 entries of Dr Samuel Johnson's seminal dictionary, published on this very day in 1755. The laborious compilation consumed nearly a decade of his life, though he once boasted he could hav ...
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From a Scenic View to Deadly Plots: The Cato Street Conspiracy
On the parish boundary between Easby and Kildale, looking through the self-seeded birch wood toward Ward Nab, a sandstone outcrop the origin of which name escapes my grasp. Therefore, I must lean on hodiurnal past happenings for the rest of this post.
In the tumultuous throes of economic strife and political unrest in the early 19th century, ...
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Easby Moor from Roseberry Topping
The names Easby and Roseberry both derive from Old Scandinavian, but what did the Deiri tribe, nestled snugly between the Humber and the Tees rivers, call these places? Picture Deira as the precursor to Yorkshire, holding court in York.
But Deira wasn't a territorial area. It seems more like a robust dynasty. The exact genesis of this lineage has been lost ...
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Yat stoops on Easby Bank
On a morning with ever-changing atmospheric conditions, I found myself in pursuit of that elusive sun. The weather played tricks, switching between drizzle and dullness one moment, and dazzling sunlight accompanied by rainbows the next. Thus, an opportunistic approach in selecting a photograph for today's posting.
This pair of 'yat stoops' located on Easby Bank has app ...
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Hogmena
Captain Cook's Monument was busy this morning. Plenty of folk working up an appetite for their Christmas Dinner. Me, I dropped down the slope a bit and played with my pareidolia.
I always believed hogmanay is the name for the New Year celebrations in Scotland, yet it transpires that a related term had found currency south of the border. An excerpt from John Trotter Brockett's ostentatiously titled ...
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Christmas Contemplations
On this eve of Christmas Day, I found myself deep in thought. It seems a mere five minutes since last year. Maybe it's just because of that old chestnut: "time flies when you're having fun." Each morning I do wake up excited as to what adventures the day will bring.
Dopamines, those pleasure-inducing chemicals, supposedly interfere with our internal ...
http://www.fhithich.uk/?p=34045
#CliffRigg #EasbyMoor #EasbyMoor #Gribdale #Gribdale #NorthYorkMoors
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Inversion Intricacy — The Cleveland Hills from Easby Moor
We left the village this morning, enveloped in a thick fog, anticipating its prompt dispersal under the forecasted sunshine. Soon, intermittent patches of blue sky overhead began to play a fickle game. Only as we finally ascended through the murky haze to Easby Moor at 324 metres asl., we found ourselves above the clouds, affordi ...
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Remembrance Sunday on Easby Moor
On Remembrance Sunday, a brisk stomp picking up the memorial on Easby Moor for the solemn service by the Cleveland Mountain Rescue Team has become an unspoken tradition. A simple plaque there pays tribute to the unfortunate crew aboard a Hudson airplane, their three lives ending on a bitter February morning in 1940.
They had embarked from Thornaby airfield at an ...
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Smouts and Smeuses — A Cleveland Lexicon
Odd features of the landscape have always captivated my interest, though more often than not they tend to slip my mind upon returning home, overshadowed by more pressing matters.
One of these curiosities is this kink in the dry-stone wall below Easby Moor. It's almost as if two builders constructing the wall from opposite ends suddenly realised their walls wouldn ...
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Heather’s Purple Dance with Golden Grass
Apart from the swathes of purple heather, there is another colour that resonates with me and epitomises the moors at this time of the year: the golden brown of grasses. These strands of gold flourish abundantly upon the ancient swiddens, gently swaying in the breeze and contrasting with the purple that's nothing short of mesmerising. My inclination is ...
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The Local Legacy of Capt. James Cook
Well, it's been a quite a while since I last posted a photo of that obelisk known as Capt. Cook's Monument, perched ever so ostentatiously upon Easby Moor. A tribute it is to that infamous chap, Captain James Cook, the problematic "discoverer" of Australia, who hailed from the local village of Great Ayton during his youth.
Now, this monumental structu ...
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Winter’s last stand?
The brief return to Winter didn’t last long, but the last stubborn snow patches are hanging on for dear life on the fields of Aireyholme. But Roseberry Topping’s sandstone cap is clear, anxious to let go of winter fashion.
Ah, Roseberry Topping, the hill that thinks it's a volcano. With its unique shape, it's the diva of the Cleveland hills, always demanding attenti ... -
With a teachers’ strike likely, it seems timely to point out that exactly 50 years ago today teachers resumed their normal working after a three-month work-to-rule dispute with the local authority
On this day in 1973, the Daily Mirror published interviews with some Teesside pupils:
HILARY COX, age 13: "It's rotten, it's boring, and my Mam says she's sick of me ...
http://www.fhithich.uk/?p=31299
#Capt.Cook'sMonument #EasbyMoor #NorthYorkMoors #CaptainJamesCook #OnThisDay #OTD
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The story of Cleopatra’s Needle journey to Britain
The well-known monument to Capt. James Cook was erected in 1827. The design of an obelisk has led some to speculate a masonic connection.
But the more probable reasoning was that obelisks were simply in vogue. In that year, Dublin had begun its erection of the Wellington Monument in Phoenix Park t ...
http://www.fhithich.uk/?p=31002
#Capt.Cook'sMonument #EasbyMoor #NorthYorkMoors #CaptainJamesCook #Cleopatra'sNeedle #JohnDixon
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A day of strange atmospherics
On this day in 2005, at 0601 in the morning, a huge explosion rocked an oil depot in Buncefield near Hemel Hempstead in Hertfordshire. It was the largest in peacetime Europe and the noise is said to have been heard as far away as the Netherlands.
I seem to remember people at work saying they had heard the boom ...
http://www.fhithich.uk/?p=30877
#Capt.Cook'sMonument #EasbyMoor #EasbyMoor #Guisborough #NorthYorkMoors #RystonNab #temperatureinversion
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A brilliant day on Easby Moor for the Cleveland Mountain Rescue Team’s Remembrance Sunday gathering
The gathering took place at the memorial to the aircrew who died when their Lockheed Hudson aircraft crashed into the hill on 11th February 1940.
The aircraft took off from Thornaby-on-Tees at 04:10 and failed to gain suffient height due to …
http://www.fhithich.uk/?p=30630
#Capt.Cook'sMonument #EasbyMoor #EasbyMoor #NorthYorkMoors #RoseberryTopping #ClevelandMRT #remembrance