We called into The Moors National Park Centre at Danby yesterday to have a look at the Len Tabner exhibition, Paintings from the Wild Places. It’s rather wonderful and well worth a visit.
Danby
The Smell of Water Part 3: Danby Rigg
The Smell Of Water Part One: St. Hilda’s Church, Danby, North Yorkshire
Part One of a short series of films made by Bob Fischer and Andrew T Smith for Local History Month.
Each episode also features an original soundtrack written and performed by Oli Heffernan aka Ivan the Tolerable.
Burning Moors
I took a walk onto Danby Low Moor to have a look around the old silica rock quarries. The quarries were active from the late nineteenth century until the mid twentieth century.
The stone was transported from the moor via an incline to a crushing plant in Castleton. The silica-rich stone was used in the manufacture of refractory bricks and foundry moulding sand.
Keepers across the moors were taking advantage of the light southerly winds, I could see the smoke from at least half a dozen moorland fires. As the day progressed more fires were lit. Smoke was blowing from the high moors into the Esk valley via Westerdale and Danby Dale.
Looking eastwards along Eskdale , a low bar of smoke could be seen running along the coast where the light onshore winds met the stronger offshore wind, pushing the smoke northwards along the coastline
The smoke from the northern moor tops gradually made its way to the escarpment edge and could be seen dropping down into the Tees valley and East Cleveland. If you were beneath the escarpment you probably wouldn’t notice the smoke, however, it was quite visible from above.
The periodic burning of the moorlands is a controversial issue with arguments for and against, there is no doubt that it is a destructive process and can have a detrimental effect on the delicate ecosystems of the upland moors and bogs.
What isn’t often discussed are the human health effects of these burnings. In an attempt to cut pollution and improve air quality, the government is currently legislating to reduce emmisions from all sectors of society but I can’t find any reference to the burning of moorland in the Government’s Clean Air Strategy
In many ways, the grouse shooting industry seems to be untouched by the modern world. It occurs to me that with the current pandemic, many people are experiencing breathing difficulties, any increase in atmospheric pollutants is not a good thing, especially for those who live in the moorland dales.
Smoke is defined as the gaseous products of burning materials especially of organic origin made visible by the presence of small particles of carbon
It is unlawful to cause emission of smoke which is prejudicial to health or causes a nuisance. [Section 79 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990] The Heather & Grass Burning Code
Wandering over Danby Rigg
Danby – Village of the Danes
Rigg – Ridge (OScand hryggr)
Little Fryup Dale – Crossley Side – Old Wife’s Stones – Enclosure 738 (Ring Cairn) – Rake Way – Double Dykes – Bakers Nab – Hanging Stone
If you have an interest in history Danby Rigg is a great place to visit. It was a busy place in the past, the northern end of the Rigg is covered in prehistoric cairns, low walls, embanked pits, hut circles and dykes. There are also Medieval features including the Viking-Age Double Dykes, iron bloomeries and trackways. Many of these features are quite subtle, especially where the heather is long, but once you get your eye in you begin to spot them everywhere, trying to make sense of them is a different matter.
The Rigg is also rich in folklore with the Old Wife’s Stones and a Corpse Road which leads from Fryup Dale across the Fairy Cross Plain to St Hilda’s Church in Danby Dale. The dales around the Rigg are littered with tales of Hobs, Spitits and Witches.
Many years ago, when I first started visiting the Rigg, I was overwhelmed by the amount of prehistoric remains that could be seen. Over the years I have learned to focus my visits on one or two features and try and work out their relationships to the landscape.
On this visit I decided to take a look at a natural feature called The Hanging Stone. On my way to the stone I thought I’d have a quick look at the Old Wife’s Stones and a large circular monument close to the Double Dykes. It was a blistering hot day with barely a breeze, following the Old Wife’s Stones road up the side of the Rigg, I realised that midday was probably not the best time to be doing this.
On old OS maps the Old Wife’s Stones are shown as a pair of stones, today only one remains. It sits close to the Old Wife’s Stones Road at the base of the steep scarp and overlooks Little Fryup Dale, the Fairy Cross Plain and Round Hill. On the image above the road running off to the top left follows the route of the Church Road also known as The Old Hell Road, a late Medieval Corpse Road that runs over the Rigg from Fryup Dale to St. Hilda’s Church in Danby Dale.
Just to the north of the Double Dykes is a large circular monument. The ring has a diameter of approximately 20 metres, it comprised of a low stone-built ring with a possible northern entrance.
This site was interpreted in the past as a settlement site. It was originally excavated by Atkinson in 1863. It was excavated again in 1956 by W.H. Lamplough and W.P. Baker and then re-examined by A.F Harding and J. Ostoja-Zagorski in 1984. Harding’s conclusion was that it was an Early Bronze Age, Ring Cairn, one of a number of similar monuments that run across the Rigg.
Walking on to the Double Dykes, a number of fairly low upright stones can be seen along the earthwork.
The Hanging Stone sits on the scarp edge of the Rigg overlooking Danby Dale. The rock itself is part of the Dogger Formation, a group of sandstones formed in shallow seas 170-174 million years ago. The stone is covered in graffiti, there are also a number of cup marks, one of which shows signs of being pecked. Given the amount of modern graffiti on the stone it is impossible to say whether the cup marks are prehistoric or modern.
Sources
Prehistoric and Early Medieval Activity on Danby Rigg, North Yorkshire. A.F. Harding with J Ostoja-Zagorski. Royal Archaeological Institute 151, 1994.
The Place Names of the North Riding of Yorkshire. A.H. Smith 1928
Maps reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland
Lealholm Moor
I took a walk from Danby Beacon to Lealholm Moor to have a look at a Ring Cairn that I had recently read about.
The wide track from the Beacon is made of slag, the slag would probably have been brought from the furnaces of Teesside during the early days of WWII when a large radar installation was built on the moors. Ironstone travelling from Rosedale and the Esk valley down to the furnaces of Teesside with iron-rich slag returning to the moors.
A rainstorm blows into Great Fryup Dale from the high moors
The storm tracks along the Esk valley, the sun briefly follows behind.
At the side of the track a gorse bush has grown a hedge around its base, a prickly windbreak for itself and the moorland sheep
On the rigg the thin moorland soils offer little, this is compounded by the regular burning and draining of the moors, ensuring that very little apart from heather and a few grasses can thrive. In times of increasing climate instability and the loss of native species, the management of grouse moors is coming under increasing pressure to change its ways. Stanhope White once called the moors ‘a man made desert’.
A moorland cross base and cradle, the remains of Stump Cross. The cross was located at the junction of 2 medieval trackways, Stonegate and Leavergate.
The cross base sits at the foot of Brown Rigg Howe, a Bronze Age Round Barrow located on a small hill. The barrow is intervisible with a number of other prehistoric monuments including mounds on the other side of the Esk Valley.
On top of the barrow is a steel plate, a base plate of a military searchlight, used for guarding the nearby Radar station during WWII.
The Brown Rigg barrow was opened by Canon Atkinson of Danby, he found a cremation burial and a stone axe made of basalt. A number of stone axes have been found locally including one made from Ironstone, it is now in the Whitby Museum.
Rabbits have made the mound their home, their paths revealed where the heather has been burned-off.
I walk on to the next barrow, a gamekeeper cruises by in his large 4×4. The keepers work for the Baron of Danby, Viscount Downe owner of the Dawnay Estate. The Dawnay estate website states that the Barons ancestors came from Aunay in Normandy. I would like to think that a number of my ancestors lie beneath the earth and stone mounds of the moors.
I arrive at the Ring Cairn. As with most surviving North Yorkshire moorland Ring Cairns there is very little to be seen, the 14 meter diameter ring can just be made out in the heather.
What draws me to these places is not necessarily the physical remains of the monuments but the opportunity to walk and observe their viewsheds, seeing how they sit in the landscape and speculate on their relationship with the many other prehistoric monuments of the area. Lines of mounds running across the moors and along the coast, marking the trackways and territories of our ancestors.
intervisibility/alignment – monuments – invasion beacons – radar stations – trackways
axe – ironstone – scoria
A great article on the WWII radar site at Danby Beacon http://liminalwhitby.blogspot.com/2012/12/danby-beacon.html
Siss Cross
High Thorn under Will’s Hut passing Harlow Bush to the tank road. South passing Robin Hood’s Butts to Sandy Slack Head, west at Elm Ledge crossing Black Beck Swang peat pits to Siss Cross Road.
Swang
..the last earth fort
Podzol
Born waiting to die
Viewshed sunwise – Gerrick Moor – Elm Ledge – Beacon Hill – Glaisdale Rigg – Great Fryup Dale – Heads – Danby High Moor – Danby Rigg – Ainthorpe Rigg – Danby Dale – Castleton Rigg – Westerdale Moor – Kempswithen – Kildale Moor – Haw Rigg – High Moor – Siss Cross Hill
Peter Hicks
I visited this today and was fortunate enough to have a long chat with Peter. I can highly recommend this beautiful retrospective of his work
A Danby Perambulation
I recently found this on my hard drive. I’m not sure of the source.
Perambulation of the Boundaries of the Forest, Dale and Lordship of Danby, August 1792
BEGINNING from the Water of Eske, up Commondale-Beck to Thunder-Bush Beck or Lane; from thence to Bank-Top, through two Inclosures where one William Carter formerly lived, and now or late occupied by John Rickaby; from thence to Tod-How, near Leaden-Well; from thence to White-Cross; from thence along by Sandwath by the Middle of the Common King’s Highway, leading from Stokesley to Whitby; to a Place called Harlot-Busk, otherwise Harlow-Bush, otherwise Harlot-Thorn, otherwise Harlow-Thorn, otherwise High- Thorn; from thence to Water-Dittings; from thence to Beckwith-Stone; from thence to Little-Dinnond; from thence to Great-Dinnond; from thence to the Stone on Frankland-Dyke; from thence to Long-Stone; from thence to Good Goose-Thorne; from thence to Nan-Stone; from thence to the Head of Hardill-Beck, and so into the same Head, going down the said River, toward the South, unto the Lane of Woodall, and further by the same River there, called Woodall-Beck, and by a Ford called Stonegate-Ford, into a Place where the said River falleth into the Water of Eske, going down the said Water unto Glaizedale-Beck, to a Place there called Firris-Bridge, or New-Bridge, (at the low end of Glaizedale;) from thence going up Glaizedale-Beck, towards the South, up to the Upper Head thereof; from thence to the Yoak; from thence to Lamb-Folds; from thence to Holed-Stone; from thence to, Shunner-How; from thence by a Rook of Stones to Loose-How; from thence to White-Cross; from thence to Ralph-Cross; from thence descending the Top or Edge of the Hill, between Danby and Westerdale, by Gallow-How and Crown-End, even as the Rain-Water falleth both Ways, even to the Water of Eske, and so down to the Place where Commondale-Beck meets with the same, where it first began.
The Earliest Use of Cleveland Ironstone?
The display card should read Danby Low Moor
Pannett Park Museum, Whitby.
The Smell of Water 