Drawing the Blood String: An 18th-Century Ritual

I had to negotiate this suckler herd grazing quietly under Easby Moor today. That stare. Intense, almost hostile. Yet these were docile animals, and generally always have been — which is precisely why farmers could do things to them that would make a surgeon wince.

Yorkshire has a ...

http://www.fhithich.uk/2026/06/17/drawing-the-blood-string-an-18th-century-ritual/

#LittleAyton #NorthYorkMoors #18thcentury #agricultural #history

Ticksey How

The Smeathorns Road across the moor to Castleton. I have ridden it more times than I can count, and today I nearly missed it again.

A boundary stone. Right there, behind the stock fence.

Weathered sandstone, inscribed “S Ticksey how” — marking the old boundary between the parishes of Stanghow and Moorsholm. The wire mesh and barbed wire arrived a c ...

http://www.fhithich.uk/2026/06/16/ticksey-how/

#MoorsholmMoor #NorthYorkMoors #StanghowMoor #18thcentury #history

Phase 2 of Roseberry’s Facelift Begins

Last week, the powers that be helicoptered huge black bags of stone and gravel onto the south flank of Roseberry Topping, ready for this year’s phase of its major path upgrading. I have been anxious to see the progress.

To the left of the leftmost foxglove, the bridleway, after climbing up from the Folly field, cont ...

http://www.fhithich.uk/2026/06/15/phase-2-of-roseberrys-facelift-begins/

#NorthYorkMoors #RoseberryTopping #AccessRights

Hole of Horcum - a vast moorland hollow formed by the force of glacial meltwater

#FootpathFriday

#NorthYorkMoors #Yorkshire #Walking