Clearing the Blackthorn: The Mother of the Woods Fights Back
A grey, soaking day settles over the National Trust property at Port Mulgrave. Rain drips from every branch and bramble. The task at hand: cutting back the blackthorn regrowth that has swallowed the public footpath through a tangle of unyielding woodland. Far bel ...
http://www.fhithich.uk/2025/11/13/clearing-the-blackthorn-the-mother-of-the-woods-fights-back/
#NorthYorkMoors #PortMulgrave #YorkshireCoast #flora #folklore
Brackenberry Wyke: Low Tide Quarrying
Only when the sea has receded at low tide can one safely pick a path along the foot of the cliffs at Brackenberry Wyke. Here lie the ghostly remains of the old ironstone workings, where men once hacked at the exposed seams before hauling their spoil through an adit to join the great warren of tunnel ...
http://www.fhithich.uk/2025/11/07/brackenberry-wyke-low-tide-quarrying/
#NorthYorkMoors #PortMulgrave #YorkshireCoast #history #IronstoneMining
Idiots’ Luck on Black Monday
A day at the seaside, at Port Mulgrave with the National Trust. After the blip of yesterday, lovely sunshine again.
It is whispered—by those who still have the energy to be shocked—that Trump and his merry band of grifters quietly offloaded large chunks of their share portfolios just before he decided to slap tariffs on anything that moved. Then, after the predictable n ...
http://www.fhithich.uk/2025/04/10/idiots-luck-on-black-monday/
High Lingrow: From Wartime Deception to Agricultural Use
At Port Mulgrave today, where the weather could not make up its mind, shifting between sunshine and snow flurries. Lingrow Cliffs is just that little headland across the bay, not really anything special, especially at low tide. But near its highest point—named, with great imagination, High Lingrow—there was once a Second World W ...
http://www.fhithich.uk/?p=37445
#ClevelandWay #PortMulgrave #YorkshireCoast #history #military
Port Mulgrave: A Harbour of Erosion and Memory
The last time I ventured down Rosedale Cliff to Port Mulgrave was sometime before the world discovered a new way to grind to a halt — the dreaded COVID. Shortly afterwards, a landslip completely wiped out the path. Today, visiting the beach was not on the itinerary, but fate – in the form of National Park rangers – intervened. They were valiantly attem ...
Rosedale Wyke to Ruin: The Decline of Port Mulgrave
Every time I visit Port Mulgrave, I am struck by how little it changes—save, of course, for the gradual but ceaseless gnawing of the harbour by the North Sea. Today, I didn’t manage to descend to the beach, not that I missed much, for from Rosedale Cliffs I could see quite plainly that the old harbour has resigned itself to silt and steady erosion.
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Landslides and Lost Steps
The coast offered a respite from the mist that, I understand, shrouded the moors today. This is Port Mulgrave, once a bustling harbour east of Staithes, where ironstone was shipped to the foundries of Tyneside.
The descent from the cliff top at Port Mulgrave to the harbour below is no easy task. The path, worn by the daily passage of men who once laboured on the quays and ...
Mick Garratt
Prof Sara Cousins