Second left along the A171 and we
head for the moors once more, its bleak barrenness never fails to create a
moment of wonder. Climbing the small
steep lane, the shuddering of the car as it goes over the cattle grid and there
it is. Brown is the colour that immediately
strikes you it stretches for miles in all directions also there is the sight of
burnt heather, which is deliberately burnt each year for regeneration of the
heather itself, creating a patchwork effect on the slopes. As you drive further onto the moor a green valley will start to
appear down below with small clusters of houses scattered along a white ribbon
of a lane.
Stop the car, and then you notice
the small palette of colour around you, in fact the heather flowers are coming
out, a rich purple, paler mauve and then white, the tiny flowers being mined by
bees.
The wind is blowing fiercely, no
sheep around, but the turf has been bitten to a fraction of its former size and
there is a tapestry of tiny white and yellow flowers interwoven. North Yorkshire Moors are probably one of the
largest moors in Europe a vast wasteland only good for grouse, sheep and
wildlife. Awe-inspiring is perhaps
another word to use, for to those of us bought up in towns this ‘wilderness’ is
spectacular, the occasional small farm culling the wilderness and making
inroads with their green fields, but you notice the incipient rush, or reed forcing
its way into the green sward. The bracken
fights for its space as well, its gentle fronds are poisonous to animals as
well as humans, yet there are acres of it.
We stop so that I can take a
photo of an old stone by the side of the
road, it has attitude this stone, prehistoric probably, way marking stones can
be found along these isolated roads across the moor, they trace the path of the
road when the moors are buried in snow.
Walking towards the stone I notice harebells blowing in the wind
protected by the more solid heather plants.
Sky blue gentle nodding flowers they always uplift the spirit, it is the
clarity of their colour, a blue not often found in the flower kingdom.
Driving for miles over this
landscape, grouse butts are different here to what we have seen before, grassy
banks with stones delineating their
size, on top of some of them, seed trays have been placed with what
looks like salt but we don’t stop to investigate. Walker cairns stand isolated and strange in the far distance,
walkers I suppose must be grateful for their presence giving shelter from the
continuous wind, a bronze age cairn sometimes makes an appearance on the
horizon but the presence of the dead has little effect, solitary monuments to
those people who may have made these desert like moors.
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| The stair turret at Rosedale |
We arrive at Rosedale Abbey, a
pleasant little village, welcoming to tourists with its teashop, nothing much
remains of the abbey itself just a small stone staircase turret, close to the
church. The terraced houses here are
rather beautiful, as tiny as our cottage, they have pointed window frames
echoing the old abbey once, but built more recently, perhaps late Victorian or
early 20th century. There was iron mined in the area and perhaps
they were built by the mine owner for his workers, so much history everywhere
to discover. Today these cottages are
probably used for holiday homes
.
Then on to Pickering, (another blog)
with its spectacular wall paintings in
the church. Pickering is a pretty little
market town, driving around it on our way down to Whitby, you miss this little
town of small shops, a good place to live.
We go on to explore a pub at Levisham, first we must take the road
through the Domesday village of Lockton, we turn left down a small lane,a
precipitous steep fall into the valley below to the right of the car
looks worrying, we meet three cars racing haphazardly up the lane, and LS pulls
over quickly. The lane is dangerous, zigzagging
down to the bottom and then into the
village. There is a small train station somewhere
perhaps behind the pub which forms the dead-end of the village itself. We do not stop, LS decides he doesn’t want a
pint and then driving back over that road!
But apparently you can walk round to Holcrum Hole from here, a matter of
a few miles and presumably catch the little steam train back to Whitby on the
return journey.
A visual impression of this area,
is sparse dark moors but interspersed with radiant green valleys farmed right
to ‘the edge’ of the moors. Small stone
houses, are dotted round begging the question what sort of livelihood people
make here. Our neighbour says that the
people of Whitby grumble and are angry about tourist cottages and the great
influx of tourists in high season – no jobs for the young and no houses. Whilst sympathising with this, the cottages
you find in the town are very small, hardly conducive to bringing up a family
and there is a large surburban area at the top end.
Jobs are a problem everywhere of
course, there is a new mine to open soon on the moors, which has given rise to
some opposition but it will provide quite a few more jobs, and Sainsbury has
just opened its doors giving the Co-Op a run for its money. We have found that August in Whitby is
crowded and perhaps not the best time to come, though of course once out on the
moors there is hardly anyone.
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Not a good photo, they were blowing around in a very strong wind |
