A Quarter Century of the Right to Roam, More or Less

Today brings a double milestone for those in England and Wales who find the open air rather more enticing than the sofa. It is twenty-five years since the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 marched through Parliament and twenty years since its promised free ...

http://www.fhithich.uk/2025/11/30/a-quarter-century-of-the-right-to-roam-more-or-less/

#Aireyholme #LittleRoseberry #NorthYorkMoors #20thCentury #AccessRights #history

Little Roseberry and an Echo of Old Norse

From this viewpoint on Ryston Bank the knoll of Little Roseberry takes on a presence rather more commanding than its shy appearance on the O.S. Map, where it is denied even a ring contour.

If the name Roseberry grew out of “Othenesberg”, the Old Norse for Odin’s Hill, it seems ...

http://www.fhithich.uk/2025/11/23/little-roseberry-and-an-echo-of-old-norse/

#LittleRoseberry #NorthYorkMoors #RoseberryTopping #RystonBank #history #medieval

Raw Impressions: Cleveland Hills Above a Blanket of Mist

Certainly, nothing whatsoever about this view of the Cleveland Hills evokes the word “recrudescence”—though it is oddly suited to today’s general mood. In the 20th century, “recrudescence” came to signify the reappearance of anything thoroughly unpleasant after a period of respite—war, plague, outrage, crime. The 18th-century meaning was more viscerally sat ...

http://www.fhithich.uk/?p=36662

#ClevelandHills #LittleRoseberry

Roseberry’s Witches and the New Myths We Embrace: A Continuum of Credulity

According to the quaint tales of yesteryear, Roseberry Topping was once a preferred haunt of witches. Picture, if you will, three Ayton men, trembling with fright, witnessing a trio of broomstick-riding hags circling the summit and executing some arcane ritual, while sorrowful wails echoed through the night. The village ...

http://www.fhithich.uk/?p=36150

#LittleRoseberry #NorthYorkMoors #RoseberryTopping

A Path up Little Roseberry, Everything has a History

On the hills and moors lie many landscape features, their origins lost in the mists of time. Contemplating their history evokes me with a sense of curiosity. Take, for instance, the path ascending towards the deep notch in the Little Roseberry spur—it stands as a prime example.

The erosion scored into the slope su ...

http://www.fhithich.uk/?p=35096

#LittleRoseberry #NorthYorkMoors #RoseberryCommon #RoseberryTopping #mediaeval

When is a motorbike not a motorbike?

Why, when it's an 'electronically assisted pedal cycle' of course. Or EAPC. Or e-bike.

Ah, what a glorious morning it was! Roseberry was draped in a luxurious blanket of cloud, obscuring any hint of beauty or interest. As I ascended Little Roseberry, I stumbled upon a lad indulging in a fag and soaking up the "atmosphere". Apparently, he was ...

http://www.fhithich.uk/?p=31976

#LittleRoseberry #NorthYorkMoors #RoseberryTopping #NationalTrust

A lesson for us all: beware of the tallyman

A few scattered hawthorn trees mark the vestiges of an old hedgerow. Little Roseberry and Black Bank in the distance.

The massive credit facility needed by our former Prime Minister has been making the headlines recently. A lifestyle that demands this amount of money 'on tick' is incomprehensible to me.

At the turn of the ...

http://www.fhithich.uk/?p=31396

#Aireyholme #LittleRoseberry #NorthYorkMoors #20thCentury #socialhistory

I ought not allow this day to pass without mentioning Rabbie Burns, born on this day in 1759 in Ayeshire

But I won't quote the National Bard of Scotland's poem most associated with Burns Night and recited worldwide on this day: 'Address to a Haggis'.

Instead a poem in which Burns reflects on the treatment of nature and the fortunes ‘Of Mice and Men’, a line later immortalised in t ...

http://www.fhithich.uk/?p=31334

#LittleRoseberry #NorthYorkMoors #RoseberryTopping #RobertBurns

Deck the halls with boughs of holly, Fa la la la la la la la!

It's been a bumper year for all sorts of fruits and berries, and the holly is no exception.

I was fascinated by this holly bush on Ryston Bank — the northern slope of Little Roseberry. Its branches are laden with bright red berries. In the distance is the flat topped Bousdale Hill ...

http://www.fhithich.uk/?p=30926

#BousdaleHill #LittleRoseberry #NorthYorkMoors #RoseberryCommon #RystonBank #Holly #NationalTrust #snow