The Watchers of the Plain: Highcliff Nab in the Stone Age Landscape
From Gisborough Moor, Highcliff Nab rises starkly above the Cleveland Plain, and it is easy to imagine the lives of its earliest visitors, the Mesolithic hunter-gatherers who roamed here during six millennia before 4000 BC — long befor ...
#Guisborough #HighcliffNab #NorthYorkMoors #history #mesolithic #prehistoric
Highcliff Watches, Barley Shines
This morning’s walk over Bousdale Hill had the familiar silhouette of Highcliff Nab looming in the distance, but it was the barley that stole the scene. Almost fully ripe, it glowed in the light. I remembered a daft tale from childhood—barley heads tucked into your sleeve would supposedly “walk” their way up. Never did for ...
http://www.fhithich.uk/2025/06/28/highcliff-watches-barley-shines/
A Boundary Stone of 1860 and a Chaloner Legacy
A one-way walk to Guisborough—infinitely preferable than a circular route. Today’s image features Highcliff Nab, seen from just below Black Nab across the fields of Codhill Farm—or Highcliffe Farm, depending on whom you wish to offend. One must name both or risk mild social unrest. The boundary ston ...
http://www.fhithich.uk/2025/04/29/a-boundary-stone-of-1860-and-a-chaloner-legacy/
Bold Venture Gill
The public footpaths through Highcliffe Farm have been diverted. Fascinating. I am sure there is an entirely compelling reason for depriving the public of paths they have used for decades. Perhaps the landowner fancied some peace and quiet, or maybe there was a pressing need to shift things about for reasons too profound for us mere mortals to understand.
The new diversi ...
Highcliff Nab: A Crusty Puzzle
Highcliff Nab today, and an enduring puzzle on its crag face. Nearly the entire surface is smothered in light green lichen, except for one striking vertical band where the rock is inexplicably bare, as though the lichens collectively decided this spot was beneath them.
Lichens, those delightful symbiotic oddities born of desperation between fungi and algae, ...
Highcliff Nab and Autumn’s Troubling Showstopper
The woodlands are ablaze with reds, oranges, and yellows in what I might call a “dazzling display,” if I were given to such enthusiasms. Recent rain has kept the trees hydrated, and unseasonably warm weather has delayed their annual shedding. How quaint.
I am on my way to Guisborough, following the forest track through Hutton ...
http://www.fhithich.uk/?p=36727
#Guisborough #HighcliffNab #HuttonLowcross #NorthYorkMoors #ecology
Zen and the Art of Being Out & About
Another gloriously miserable day on the North York Moors, the sort of day where fog clings like a wet blanket over everything, damping one's bones. I heard later the Great North Air Ambulance had been grounded due to poor visibility. It is, as ever, a perfect day for a bit of being out and about.
In the distant past—before we all became enslaved to GPS and our glow ...
1939: When Guisborough Welcomed Middlesbrough’s Evacuees
Highcliffe Nab, that well-known sandstone crag that dominates the view from Guisborough, has been the subject of these many times. But Kemplah, which sits in its shadow, doesn't get nearly enough attention. The old settlers clearly thought this promontory was important since there's evidence of both early British and Roman activ ...
http://www.fhithich.uk/?p=36208
#Guisborough #HighcliffNab #NorthYorkMoors #20thCentury #WW2
Mick Garratt
Dave Tansley
