A Morning on Newton Moor

Word had reached me that this nineteenth-century boundary stone, marking the old parish line between Hutton Lowcross and Newton, had fallen over. It has not been broken, nor properly buried — just balanced upright and packed around with a few small stones. Frankly, it is rather remarkable that it stood for over 200 ye ...

https://www.fhithich.uk/2026/05/17/a-morning-on-newton-moor/

#HuttonMoor #NewtonMoor #NorthYorkMoors #19thcentury #history #NationalTrust

Before the Path Gets Upgraded

Yesterday I climbed Roseberry Topping with no firm ideas, but found one on the way down. This worn path down the southeast flank is scheduled for upgrading. Not this year, perhaps, but soon enough. I wanted a record of it as it is.

The path along the fence line — the one the solitary walker in the red jacket is treading — is earmarked ...

https://www.fhithich.uk/2026/05/16/before-the-path-gets-upgraded/

#Aireyholme #NorthYorkMoors #RoseberryTopping

The House That Roads Built

Standing on Cliff Rigg on an overcast May morning, the view is, not to put too fine a point on it, rather spectacular. The valley of the River Leven spreads below, patchwork fields rolling away to the Cleveland Hills, and a small cluster of houses sits quietly along Dikes Lane. One of them stops you short.

That bluish-grey bui ...

https://www.fhithich.uk/2026/05/15/the-house-that-roads-built/

#CliffRigg #GreatAyton #NorthYorkMoors #19thcentury #history

Elm Houses: A Story of Two Bransdale Farms

Tucked into a remote part of Bransdale, Elm Houses has a tale worth telling. What is today one tidy holiday cottage surrounded by idle farm buildings was once two entirely separate farms: High and Low Elm House.
On the right stands High Elm House, a long 18th-century range. A lintel stone dated 17 ...

https://www.fhithich.uk/2026/05/14/elm-houses-a-story-of-two-bransdale-farms/

#Bransdale #NorthYorkMoors #18thcentury #19thcentury #history

Echoes in the Vale: The Ghostly Rise and Fall of Leven Vale Cottages

By the mid-1850s, “Ironstone Fever” had Cleveland in its grip. The success at Eston tempted the Trustees of the young Robert Bell Turton to open up the Kildale Estate through an 1855 Act of Parliament. Investors fell for the “rabbit ...

https://www.fhithich.uk/2026/05/12/echoes-in-the-vale-the-ghostly-rise-and-fall-of-leven-vale-cottages/

#Kildale #NorthYorkMoors #RiverLeven #19thcentury #history #IronstoneMining

A New View, a New Mudd.e

The recent clear felling of a block of forestry in Ayton Banks Wood has opened up a new view of Roseberry. The commercial timber has gone, leaving a few gangly birch trees to stand guard over the valley. It turns out that Gribdale Terrace, that isolated row of white cottages, has a history which is a bit of a muddle.
One academic maintains that thes ...

https://www.fhithich.uk/2026/05/11/a-new-view-a-new-mudd-e/

#Gribdale #NorthYorkMoors #RoseberryTopping

Crathorne Hall

Look at this fine house, which Pevsner described as “large and lavish”. Lording it over the Leven valley. It was built between 1903 and 1906 for a man named James Lionel Dugdale; Lord Dugdale to give him his title. Today, this building is an upmarket hotel. You will pay a lot of money to sleep there and pretend you are important. It is all so very posh.

The Dugd ...

https://www.fhithich.uk/2026/05/10/crathorne-hall/

#Crathorne #NorthYorkshire #19thcentury #history

A Murder at Kildale, 1871

The view from the hills above Kildale, taken yesterday — when the weather was rather more agreeable than today’s thoroughly dreich conditions.

The North York Moors is not the sort of place one associates with violent crime. Yet on the evening of Wednesday 16 August 1871, a quiet farm in Kildale became the scene of a killing that shoo ...

https://www.fhithich.uk/2026/05/09/a-murder-at-kildale-1871/

#Kildale #Lonsdale #NorthYorkMoors #19thcentury #history

Valley Garden: Bluebells, Bog Plants and a Baffling Fern

In the early 1950s, Lord Feversham had a rather splendid idea. To keep his staff at Bransdale Lodge busy, he ordered a “wild garden” to be carved out of Gimmer Bank Wood, on the soggy banks of Blowith Slack, a tributary of Hodge Beck. In went azaleas, rhododendrons, flowering cherries ...

https://www.fhithich.uk/2026/05/08/valley-garden-bluebells-bog-plants-and-a-baffling-fern/

#Bransdale #NorthYorkMoors #flora #NationalTrust