Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #wainstones, aggregated by home.social.
The Quiet Side of the Wainstones
Folklore has a habit of latching itself to a place, especially when the landscape looks as if it has something to answer for. A strange rock, an awkward slope, a stone where no stone ought to be, and the human mind gets to work, explaining things up with a story.
Few landmarks on the North York Moors do this better than th ...
http://www.fhithich.uk/2026/01/07/the-quiet-side-of-the-wainstones/
A Mystery Beneath our Feet on Cold Moor
Last Sunday, the weather gods allowed a final memorable spectacle of blue skies over the North York Moors before the autumnal gloom. From the heights of Cold Moor, the view towards the Wainstones was as grand as ever, but my eye was drawn not to the distant crags, but to something ra ...
http://www.fhithich.uk/2025/10/15/a-mystery-beneath-our-feet-on-cold-moor/
#ClevelandHills #ClevelandWay #CoastToCoast #ColdMoor #NorthYorkMoors #wainstones
The Inscrutable Smile of the Wainstones
They say the Great Sphinx of Giza was carved from a natural limestone outcrop, its form inspired by the imagined body of some animal, perhaps a lion, perhaps not. Such acts of pareidolia echo across cultures and centuries. As for the Sphinx at the Wainstones, I cannot say who named it first. Perhaps it was C. Fielding, who trave ...
http://www.fhithich.uk/2025/08/31/the-inscrutable-smile-of-the-wainstones/
POW! WHACK! The Circus Returns to Town
On this day in 1966, the campy spectacle of Batman made its debut on American television. Adam West donned the cape, Burt Ward chirped as Robin, and Cesar Romero refused to shave his moustache to play the Joker. Although by the time it hit British screens, I was too old, but I remember it well. It had simplistic morals for children, a relentlessly upbeat the ...
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
The Sheep Walk’s Silent Lament
Long ago, or so the legend goes, a Danish chieftain met a sticky end amongst these rocky crags now known as the Wainstones, a name supposedly derived from the Old Saxon ‘wanian,’ meaning to lament. Perhaps our unfortunate chieftain found his doom in this rather dramatic boulder-strewn gap between the rock outcrops, now rather humbly named The Sh ...
http://www.fhithich.uk/?p=36102
#NorthYorkMoors #wainstones #ClevealndWay #CoastToCoast #LykeWakeWalk
Welkin’s Cheek
Before "sky" became the common term for the vast expanse above us, it was poetically known as "welkin"—a word closely related to the German "Wolke," meaning cloud, and even more so to "Wölkchen," meaning little cloud. Today, the welkin offered a breathtaking sight for those who gazed upward.
Shakespeare himself was no stranger to this enchanting word. In “ ...
http://www.fhithich.uk/?p=35969
#ColdMoor #NorthYorkMoors #RoseberryTopping #wainstones #meteorological
1874’s Graffiti: Dogs, a Fox, or a Pig on Broughton Bank
Today, I stumbled upon some Victorian graffiti – or should I say graffito? It depicts a duo of dogs, or perhaps a dog hot on the heels of a fox, or maybe even a pig in pursuit of a dog. The artistic merit of the second canine is up for debate.
Dated with 1874, this 'artwork' graces a sizable boulder nestled beneath the Wainstones ...
Cheese, Stones, and a Summer Solstice Alignment
I've been diving back into that book, "Rock Art and Ritual," the one I got off eBay a few weeks back. It's been giving me the itch to go revisit some of the out of the way nooks and crannies on the North York Moors.
So today, I took a little jaunt around Urra Moor, with a slight detour to check out that massive outcrop o ...
http://www.fhithich.uk/?p=33054
#Bilsdale #GarfittGap #NorthYorkMoors #UrraMoor #wainstones #prehistoric
Prehistoric Rock Art at Garfit Gap
Garfit Gap, that well-known col on the Cleveland Way nestling between Cold Moor and the Wainstones, is one of the four natural routes climbing up from the Cleveland Plain, southward over the barrier of Cleveland Hills into Bilsdale. Each route involves a formidable climb. Nowadays, though, the Clay Bank route, aided and abetted by the B1257 road, is favoured. Ye ...
The Stones of Lamentation
One of the contenders for the most iconic landmark of the North York Moors must be the Wainstones – a rock-climbing wonderland adorned with jumbled columns of Middle Jurassic sandstone, once the ocean's ancient bed. Legend has it that the name 'Wain-stones' might have derived from the Saxon word 'wanian,' meaning to howl, and hinted at the 'stones of lamentation.'
Now, the Wainstones thems ...
The Wainstones
Playing on the Cleveland Hills today. This is a familiar landmark to all who know these hills.
My dabble in artificial intelligence a few weeks ago, was not very convincing, but I thought I would give it another go. Maybe Shakespear with his iambic pentameter was too intelligent, so I thought KISS, 'keep it simple stupid', and asked the ChatGPT bot to write me a l ...
http://www.fhithich.uk/?p=31625
#ClevelandHills #ClevelandWay #NorthYorkMoors #wainstones #Poetry