Runswick Bay & Staithes

These are my Pen & Wash sketches of two quite different but equally fascinating coastal villages of North Yorkshire, England.  Below them is a short article about their history of attracting and inspiring artists. 

Runswick Bay. N.Yorkshire – Watercolour – WHB: 2013

RUNSWICK BAY & STAITHES

These two villages lie only a few miles north of Whitby and within the North Yorkshire Moors National Park.  The villages, only about 4 miles apart, each grew up around an inlet of  Yorkshire’s North Sea Coast.  Both villages have a distinctive character and are fascinatingly atmospheric.  At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th Centuries  they nourished separate artistic communities, which are now considered to be of greater significance than has previously been recognised because of the number of artists who worked there and the paintings they produced.

One of the best known of these was the Yorkshire-born artist Arthur Friedenson who visited Runswick Bay to work many times.  Friedenson was initially apprenticed as a sign writer, before training as an artist in Paris and Antwerp. However, it was in this lovely Yorkshire coastal village that Friedenson met his future wife, and after they married in November 1906, he returned to Runswick Bay the following spring in order to paint the picture below. It was much admired at the Royal Academy that year, and purchased for the nation.

 

An interesting website, which contains a lot of material about the art galleries and museums in the area, can be found at:     Staithes & Runswick Bay Art Galleries

The NORTH YORKSHIRE MOORS National Park

A Gallery of my sketches of notable scenes related to one of the two National Parks in Great Britain’s largest county of Yorkshire. It is where I grew up and where I first experienced the riches of Britain’s glorious countryside.

Pen & Wash . . . WHB

Map of The North Yorkshire Moors

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Click on a drawing to enlarge it and view the titles

North Yorkshire Moors National Park

[ Photo Gallery # 92 ]

It is the area where I spent my youth and which will for ever be close to my (now southern) heart.  I have shown my photographs, taken over the many times I have revisited, in previous blogs.  The ones below were taken on a motoring tour of this delightful high moorland area in 2005.

The North York Moors is a national park in North Yorkshire, England, containing one of the largest expanses of  heather moorland in the United Kingdom. It covers an area of 554 sq miles (1,430 km²).  The area became a national park in 1952.

Ralph Cross on Westerdale Moor

The Lion Inn on remote Blakey Ridge is a 16th Century establishment located at the highest point of the North York Moors National Park.  It stands at an elevation of 1,325 feet and offers breathtaking views over the valleys of Rosedale and Farndale.

The Lion Inn, Blakey Ridge

Long before ‘Heartbeat’ and TV fame, the tumbling waterfall of Mallyan Spout helped put Goathland on the map as a tourist village in the nineteenth century. 

The waters of West Beck into which Mallyan Spout tumbles.

Grosmont Station is home to the operating and engineering world of the NYM Railway. Here you will find the engine sheds where the steam and diesel locomotives are maintained and restored.

Yes, steam trains – in all their glory!

This bracing moorland village has attracted visitors since the 19th century, but numbers soared following its appearance (as ‘Aidensfield’) in the television series ‘Heartbeat’ and its role in the ‘Harry Potter’ films.

Trains passing at Goathland (‘Aidensfield’) Station

A view from the NYM Railway, of the pyramid shape of the Fylingdales Royal Air Force station on Snod Hill in the North York Moors. It is a radar base and is also part of the National  Ballistic Missile Early Warning System.

The Rydale Open-air Folk museum can be found in the beautiful village of Hutton-le-Hole, in the heart of the North York Moors National Park.  The museum offers a unique glimpse of the past, with collections housed in 20 historic buildings depicting rural local life from Iron Age to 1950s.

Some of the cottages at the Rydale Folk Open-air museum

The RUN

The RUN

 Though separated from it
by so many years
that route is etched
onto my memory
I run it in my sleep now
following my recollected path
with trenchant mindset
breathing deeply
whilst
with vigorous tread
pressing onwards

The massed start
then
across the school playing field
right turn out of the gate
onto the sea road
past the police station
the nurse’s home
on to the cemetery
the very edge of town
up that tricky slope
still on metalled road
avoiding the light traffic
before the turn right
off the main road
into Mucky Lane
aptly named
plough on
with uncertain foothold
through the rutted cart tracks
muddy lane
until
eventually
the Whitby road
left towards the moors
a few hundred yards
then leaving the road
right and through the farmyard
annoying the sheepdog
avoiding its belligerence
quickly   
over the stile
up the narrow path
hedge-hugging
onto the foothills
the Cleveland scarp
all is yellow and green
steep climb through the gorse
hard going here
wet but springy turf
short-cropped by the sheep
and all is now green
still climbing
straining
through the encroaching undergrowth
brushing bracken
avoiding the sheep droppings
past the wreck of the old iron mine
the landscape now pink and brown
circle the next shale heap
slag and spoil underfoot
the air shafts
wired off now
as far as the rifle range
out of bounds
sharply right and down now
Butt Lane
and more mud
until back on the Whitby road
right again
following the stickleback stream
along the metalled paving
until
on the flat
picking up my pace
I turn left into the
Hall grounds
now the copse
quickly through
negotiating the kissing gate
and into the Applegarth
the finishing straight
arrows ahead
short sharp uphill sprint
and then
heart racing
to keep up with
legs pounding the ground
grasping the air
gasping for breath until
at last
the tape

beaten
only just
into second place

the story of my life

The views in the Photo Gallery below and in the top photograph are all from the actual area of the RUN which was on the scarp slope of the Cleveland Hills which form the Northern border of the North Yorkshire Moors National Park.  Some of them are more recent photographs of the actual places through which the cross-country course originally passed.  The photographs were culled from various internet sources covering this area.

Cleveland pathway leading through colourful yellow gorse bushes as it wends its way along the Yorkshire coastline

 

Runswick Bay & Staithes

These are my Pen & Wash sketches of two quite different but equally fascinating coastal villages of North Yorkshire, England.  Below them is a short article about their history of attracting and inspiring artists. 

These two villages lie only a few miles north of Whitby and within the North Yorkshire Moors National Park.  The villages, only about 4 miles apart, each grew up around an inlet of  Yorkshire’s North Sea Coast.  Both villages have a distinctive character and are fascinatingly atmospheric.  At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th Centuries  they nourished separate artistic communities, which are now considered to be of greater significance than has previously been recognised because of the number of artists who worked there and the paintings they produced.

One of the best known of these was the Yorkshire-born artist Arthur Friedenson who visited Runswick Bay to work many times.  Friedenson was initially apprenticed as a sign writer, before training as an artist in Paris and Antwerp. However, it was in this lovely Yorkshire coastal village that Friedenson met his future wife, and after they married in November 1906, he returned to Runswick Bay the following spring in order to paint the picture below. It was much admired at the Royal Academy that year, and purchased for the nation.  

Arthur Friedenson – Runswick Bay -1907 . . .  Tate Gallery

An interesting website, which contains a lot of material about the art galleries and museums in the area, can be found at:     Staithes & Runswick Bay Art Galleries

 

 

The North Yorkshire Moors

I am being self-indulgent and presenting eight of my pen & ink sketches, all created in my amateurish way, many years ago.  They are all of the area which established my roots and engendered my love of the countryside, of local history and legend, of place, and, more specifically, of the scenery of the North Yorkshire Moors National Park.  I no longer live in the area, but re-visit as often as I can make possible.

Below is a gallery of six of these sketches. I regret that these are not in the best of condition, having faded or stained somewhat over the years.  Clicking on any one of them will start a slide-show of all six.  The first one is a composite drawing, whilst the other five are enlarged copies of parts of this first drawing.

The North Yorkshire Moors National Park is one of the most beautiful, but one of the least visited, of the U.K’s 15 National Parks.   It encompasses a long stretch of Yorkshire’s beautiful north-east coast and the extensive hinterland of moors, dales and forests stretching from Teesside and the Cleveland Hills southwards to the vale of York.   The whole area offers splendid walks.  Two of particular note are The Lyke Wake Walk which  crosses the moors for 40 miles, and the Cleveland Way, which hugs the coastline for a large part its 110 mile length.  I cannot do the area justice in a short article, but I can recommend visiting the North Yorkshire Moors National Park  website which has plenty of detail and recommendations of what to see and do.