#northyorkmoors — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #northyorkmoors, aggregated by home.social.
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This short walk on #Yorkshire’s coast, which may benefit from onshore breezes, takes you from the pretty village of Runswick Bay which is a joy to wander around to Kettleness Hamlet. Easy return via the Cinder Track old railway route. See https://www.happyhiker.co.uk/MyWalks/NorthYorksMoors/Runswick%20Bay%20to%20Kettleness/Hiking%20Pages%20-%20Runswick%20Bay%20to%20Kettleness.htm
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This walk takes you from the pretty village of Rosedale Abbey in the #NorthYorkMoors with its history of Christian heritage, farming & iron ore industry, to equally picturesque Lastingham with its ancient church. Should provide good heather colour now. See https://www.happyhiker.co.uk/MyWalks/NorthYorksMoors/RosedaleAbbeytoLastingham/Hiking%20Pages%20-%20Rosedale%20Abbey%20to%20Lastingham.htm
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This easy walk in the #NorthYorkMoors starts between Scarborough and Whitby. It includes Falling Foss waterfall, old mine the Hermitage shelter, carved from a single boulder and lovely views inland to the Moors and to the coast, from Fylingdales Moor. See https://www.happyhiker.co.uk/MyWalks/NorthYorksMoors/FallingFossandLittlebeck/Hiking%20Pages%20-%20Falling%20Foss%20and%20Littlebeck.htm
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On our way back home from Scotland, we spent a day in Lord Stones Country Park, a campsite in the North York Moors. Both Mieke and I were here, albeit not together, when she hiked the Cleveland Way and I ran Northern Traverse.
This morning, I did a nice run on the Moors and through some forests and meadows.
After that, we walked to Wain Stones all together.A fine last day of our family holiday.
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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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A Crow’s Foot on a Gatepost
The gate itself is nothing to write home about. Seven metal bars, a stone post, the sort of thing you would walk past without a second glance. The gatepost once had a partner, another “stoup” standing guard on the other side, but that would have got hauled out years ago so tractors could squeeze through. Progress, of a sort.
Look closer, ...
http://www.fhithich.uk/2026/07/22/a-crows-foot-on-a-gatepost/
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The Spirit of the Past: When a Carthusian Ruin Became a 1,500-Person Stage
In 1927, the quiet ruins of Mount Grace Priory got a shock. For three days they were dragged out of their peaceful retirement and dressed up in the “forgotten pomp and ceremony” of a proper Roaring Twenties do. Grief did it. Lady Florence Bell had lost two ...
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The Devil’s Leap
The Devil, it turns out, once lost an argument and dropped a boulder in a strop. That is the sort of local history we deserve more of.
Walk along to Roulston Scar and you are standing on a summit 1,246 feet above the level of the sea, with the Vale of York and the Vale of Mowbray spread before you, and the West Riding and the Cumberland Hills ...
http://www.fhithich.uk/2026/07/20/the-devils-leap/
#HoodHill #NorthYorkMoors #RoulstonScar #TabularHills #folklore
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Hood Grange
Behind this somewhat sad stone farmhouse lies eight centuries of quiet drama.
A hermitage stood here before 1138, when monks moved in under Roger de Mowbray’s patronage. Cistercians took the place over, then shuffled off to Old Byland after five years, then on to Byland Abbey proper. Augustinian canons from nearby Newburgh Priory moved into the empty buildings, and Hood settled down ...
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This #NorthYorkMoors walk passes Osmotherley Moor & through the village of Osmotherley itself. A section of the route follows the edge of the Moors with fine views across the Vale of Mowbray and there are some pretty scenes on the moor section too. See https://www.happyhiker.co.uk/MyWalks/NorthYorksMoors/Osmotherley%20Round/Hiking%20Pages%20-%20Osmotherley%20Round.htm
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The Squeeze: Roseberry Topping’s Disappearing Footpath
Climbing Roseberry Topping ought to be one of the simple joys in life. Not on this stretch. Here it is a “stinging” ordeal, and no mistake.
A modern post-and-wire fence runs alongside a maturing line of hedge saplings, squeezed in next to the old boundary. They were planted a few years b ...http://www.fhithich.uk/2026/07/18/the-squeeze-roseberry-toppings-disappearing-footpath/
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Petlar’s Bridge Quarry: A Brief Flirtation with Industry
I must have cycled past this old quarry near Petlar’s Bridge a couple of dozen times or so since the plantation hiding it was felled, and it has since been on my list to write about.
The quarry must pre-date the Eskdale railway by half a century. One unverified internet sou ...http://www.fhithich.uk/2026/07/17/petlars-bridge-quarry-a-brief-flirtation-with-industry/
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Ragwort: The Weed That Feeds the Bees
Three heatwaves have hit Britain since spring, baking the ground and warming the seas. Humidity makes it feel worse. Soil has dried fast, wildfire risk is high, and marine life is under strain too. The Met Office, says cooler air is due soon, but rain is not, so dry days continue.
Some plants seem to be thriving. Like these ragw ...http://www.fhithich.uk/2026/07/15/ragwort-the-weed-that-feeds-the-bees/
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“F RO END”
I have caught sight of this guidestone plenty of times, hurtling past at sixty miles an hour. Stopping on the Blakey Ridge road is no small feat. A bike makes it far simpler.
The stone reads “F RO END”, short for “FARNDALE ROAD END”. It dates from around 1720, part of an early eighteenth century push to give lost souls a fighting chance on the moors. Good intentions, carved in ston ... -
Scugdale: The Valley That Runs the Wrong Way
Scugdale does not behave the way a North York Moors dale ought to. Most valleys here dip eastward, following the grain of the rock. Scugdale cuts north west instead, breaking through the Jurassic escarpment against the run of things. Geologists have never quite settled why. It may be the leftover of a larger dale ...
http://www.fhithich.uk/2026/07/13/scugdale-the-valley-that-runs-the-wrong-way/
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Percy Rigg: Iron Age Living
The heather has gone. Local archaeologists have begun to strip the vegetation back to where the 1960s excavators left off, not to dig fresh ground, but to expose what was already found and read it again with sharper eyes. The aim is a proper sequence: which house came first, which blocked which, and how five round houses on this ridge ...
http://www.fhithich.uk/2026/07/12/percy-rigg-iron-age-living/
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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 ... -
The 14-Year-Old Standing Stones
My feelings about Lord Stones Country Park sit somewhere between fondness and grudge. Our wedding guests gathered there for a run — a bottle of Champagne subtly secreted in the heather — before a cèilidh in the evening, so it has earned a permanent soft spot. During the 2001 Foot and Mouth outbreak, when most of Cleveland was f ...
http://www.fhithich.uk/2026/07/10/the-14-year-old-standing-stones/
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Potter’s Nab: Farndale’s New Woodland
Farndale East is getting itself a new woodland, courtesy of the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust. In the intake fields below Potter’s Nab. The idea is simple enough. Trees hold soil together, and soil held together does not go washing into the River Dove every time it rains. Sensible stuff.
Before a single sapling goes in, archaeologists ha ...http://www.fhithich.uk/2026/07/09/potters-nab-farndales-new-woodland/
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Westerdale: Two Dales, One Village, No Pub
The name Westerdale suggests it’s the westerly dale in the Esk valley, with the river starting life as springs called Esklets high on the moor. But the dale forks in two. One arm mixes wooded ravines with bare moorland and old common land, now grazed by sheep and cattle. This one, drained by Tower Beck, was once called Trowsd ...
http://www.fhithich.uk/2026/07/06/westerdale-two-dales-one-village-no-pub/
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Fat Betty: The North York Moors’ Most Deceptively Named Landmark
Standing at the head of Rosedale, on the loneliest stretch of Danby Moor, sits a stone that has outlived every joke made about it, and at least one attempted burglary. Fat Betty is nothing grander than a squat wheelhead cross, its shaft long gone, its base whitewashed li ...
http://www.fhithich.uk/2026/07/05/fat-betty-the-north-york-moors-most-deceptively-named-landmark/
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Why Historical Truth Matters
A view looking down Farndale, moments before an unforecast downpour caught me completely off guard. Typical.
But I cannot let this 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence pass without a word, mind you, because someone once said “where the US leads, Britain follows.” A worrying thought, that.
America is caught in a proper tug of war. On one side ...http://www.fhithich.uk/2026/07/04/why-historical-truth-matters/
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Roseberry’s Summerhouse: What Was It For? Nobody Quite Knows
A while has passed since I last posted a photo of Roseberry’s summerhouse.
I call it a summerhouse, though nobody agrees on what this odd building was for. The National Park have stuck a plaque on it calling it a shooting box. Fine, except a sketch by George Cruit puts ...http://www.fhithich.uk/2026/07/03/roseberrys-summerhouse-what-was-it-for-nobody-quite-knows/
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#NorthYorkMoors #Yorkshire #NYM #NorthYorkshireMoors #Moors #UK #NorthYorkshire #England #Fires #Wildfire #Wildfires #Moorland #Fire #England #Britain #News #BBC #Countryside #Country #Warning Considering the UK’s moorland becomes tinder dry in summer, the stupidity of some people is hard to believe. The fire damage was catastrophic, and the second inferno was started by a smoker who dropped a cigarette after stopping to watch the first…
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Iburndale: The Industrial Revolution Missed Its Stop
I must admit I can’t recall ever passing through Iburndale — certainly not on a bike, and that hill is steep. Sleights many times of course, but Iburndale feels such a contiguous part of Sleights, containing that same 20th-century housing favoured by retirees and the commuters of Whitby.
The old village, once cl ...http://www.fhithich.uk/2026/06/24/iburndale-the-industrial-revolution-missed-its-stop/
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Barnaby Toll Road: Even the Dead Paid to Pass
A gravel track on a baking summer day runs through lush green verges high with cow parsley and nettles. To the left stands Toll Cottage, an 18th-century stone building with a terracotta pantile roof and a weather vane on its gable.
Before tarmac, before bypasses, before anyone thought roads sh ...http://www.fhithich.uk/2026/06/23/barnaby-toll-road-even-the-dead-paid-to-pass/
#EgtonBridge #Grosmont #NorthYorkMoors #19thcentury #history
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The Field That Keeps Its Secret
This never fails to make me smile.
That teardrop island and the stubby little peninsula — where the farmer at Aireyholme cuts around rather than through — mark where the ground has quietly given up. They sit at the outer edge of the old Roseberry Mine ironstone workings.
The miners used what they cal ...http://www.fhithich.uk/2026/06/22/the-field-that-keeps-its-secret/
#Aireyholme #NorthYorkMoors #19thcentury #history #IronstoneMining #prehistoric
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A Northern Harr Brings Fine Weather From Far
I tend to avoid Roseberry on Sunday mornings but those that made the effort today might have witnessed two seasons colliding. The summit sat in sunshine. Below, the vale of Guisborough disappeared under a slow grey tide rolling in off the North Sea — a sea fret, and it has been catching the Yorkshire coast off g ...
http://www.fhithich.uk/2026/06/21/a-northern-harr-brings-fine-weather-from-far/
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Georgie Porgie, Pudding and Pie
A quiet family walk round Duncombe Park, or so we hoped. We picked the one weekend a mega motorcycle festival decided to roar through, and so much for peace and birdsong.
I wonder what Helmsley Castle made of the scene. Perched on a rocky outcrop above the River Rye, its shattered east tower looming over the town l ...
http://www.fhithich.uk/2026/06/20/georgie-porgie-pudding-and-pie/
#Helmsley #NorthYorkMoors #17thcentury #HistoricEngland #history
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Crabdale Beck: The Vanishing of G834
A venture up to the Swainby Shooting House on Whorlton Moor, part of the Snilesworth Estate. This photo is looking up Crabdale Beck which drains the moor. The “house” can be seen on the skyline if you look closely.
Crabdale Beck moves the same way it has for ten thousand years, albeit a bit gentler. Nothing about the w ...
http://www.fhithich.uk/2026/06/19/crabdale-beck-the-vanishing-of-g834/