The Pimps of Roseberry

Today’s photo is, of course, of Roseberry Topping. That dry stone wall running up the slope marks the boundary between the parishes of Newton-under-Roseberry and Great Ayton. Before the great landslip of 1912 it ran all the way to the summit.

Looking at a photograph taken before 1912, you can see vegetated ground running right to the ba ...

http://www.fhithich.uk/2026/03/03/the-pimps-of-roseberry/

#NorthYorkMoors #RoseberryTopping #20thCentury #history

2001: A Foot and Mouth Odyssey

25 years ago, in 2001, the country fell into an eerie stillness. Across the countryside, the "smell of death" drifted from funeral pyres as millions of animals were burned, transforming green fields into a "gigantic charnel house". What began as a livestock disease quickly became a national trauma, exposing how frag ...

http://www.fhithich.uk/2026/02/20/2001-a-foot-and-mouth-odyssey/

#CliffRigg #NorthYorkMoors #RoseberryTopping #history #NationalTrust

From Parish Wall to Prime Minister

Despite the slush and the grey skies, snow lends even the most familiar ground a quiet grandeur. Roseberry Topping, half veiled in white, looks less like a hill and more like a stage set, its lines sharpened and its history briefly made visible.

This wall climbing its eastern flank marks the old parish ...

http://www.fhithich.uk/2026/02/13/from-parish-wall-to-prime-minister/

#NorthYorkMoors #RoseberryTopping #17thcentury #history #NationalTrust

Access Without Respect

A pack of a dozen mountain bikers bursts down the newly rebuilt, stone-stepped path on Roseberry Topping. Several are motor-assisted. Gravity does the rest. Gravel skitters, walkers flinch, gates are left yawning behind them. For a few loud seconds the hill is theirs, claimed by speed and noise. It looks impressive, in the way a juggern ...

http://www.fhithich.uk/2026/02/08/access-without-respect/

#NorthYorkMoors #RoseberryTopping #AccessRights #NationalTrust

Letting Sheep Be Sheep

I cannot quite tell whether these sheep huddling under the gorse to dodge the sleet are tough old “moor” sheep or soft “lowland” types, but either way they carry the usual reputation. Sheep, like cows, belch methane, methane warms the planet, and that is that. Or so we thought. A study with the esoteric name “Forage for CH4nge”, carried out in ...

http://www.fhithich.uk/2026/01/30/letting-sheep-be-sheep/

#Aireyholme #NorthYorkMoors #RoseberryTopping #ecology

#TrailsOfTheUnexpected checks out #RoseberryTopping aka #OdinsHill just a cycle ride from my place in #NorthYorkshire

#GifsArtidote: i love watching these kind of channels. gives me lots of ideas of places i want to explore myself, hopefully soon.

https://youtu.be/btmeRY4KGjw?

A Walk up Roseberry topping to Find Witches, Hermits and Odin's Original English Home

YouTube

#TrailsOfTheUnexpected checks out #RoseberryTopping aka #OdinsHill just a cycle ride from my place in #NorthYorkshire

#GifsArtidote: i love watching these kind of channels. gives me lots of ideas of places i want to explore myself, hopefully soon.

https://youtu.be/btmeRY4KGjw?

A Walk up Roseberry topping to Find Witches, Hermits and Odin's Original English Home

YouTube

Initials in Stone, Mist in Motion

I stood on the summit of Roseberry Topping this morning, watching the mist drift over the fields below like a slow tide. The place felt as old as the hills, quiet enough to hear your own thoughts. Looking down at graffiti cut into the rock centuries ago only sharpened that feeling.

I am guessing, of course, that these carvings ...

http://www.fhithich.uk/2026/01/16/initials-in-stone-mist-in-motion/

#NorthYorkMoors #RoseberryTopping #NationalTrust

Merry Mōdraniht

Christmas seems to arrive earlier every year. This Christmas Eve the summit was packed to the rafters. This view follows the line of the old ironstone tramway. Now labelled a Permissive Path, it runs alongside the Public Bridleway that is Aireyholme Lane and is largely ignored, so it feels like just a box-ticking exercise.

Long before Christmas muscled its way i ...

http://www.fhithich.uk/2025/12/24/merry-modraniht/

#Aireyholme #NorthYorkMoors #RoseberryTopping

A Glimpse of a Windhover

Despite spending at least two hours outdoors on most days, close meetings with nature are thin on the ground. There is the odd distant view, a brief flicker at the edge of sight, usually gone before my patience can catch up.

My bird identification skills are basic, but even I know this much. A bird that is not fleeing nor perched, but h ...

http://www.fhithich.uk/2025/12/20/a-glimpse-of-a-windhover/

#NorthYorkMoors #RoseberryTopping #birds #NationalTrust