North Yorkshire Moors National Park

Posted on July 12, 2018 by Roland's Ragbag

[ 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

Runswick Bay & Staithes

Posted on December 12, 2016 by Roland's Ragbag

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.

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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.

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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

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The Lyke Wake Dirge

Posted on November 19, 2016 by Roland's Ragbag

Aysgarth Church at dusk – WHB – 1981

In my blog yesterday on The North Yorkshire Moors National Park , I mentioned the Lyke Wake Walk. This 40 mile walk crosses the most extensive area of heather moorland in England. When the walk was first instituted in the mid 20th Century the challenge was given to complete it within 24 hours. Many walkers still attempt this.

Although the walk itself is a relatively modern event, the Like Wake itself originated as a funeral chant in the 14th Century in and around Cleveland on and around the northern scarp slope of these moors. The Dirge as it was known, was normally sung during the traditional watch (wake) at the side of the corpse (lyke). Known now as the Lyke Wake Dirge, it is said to be one of the earliest still extant, dialect poems.

John Aubrey wrote in his diaries in 1686 “The beliefe in Yorkshire was amongst the vulgar (perhaps is in part still) that after the person’s death the soule went over Whinny-Moore, and till about 1616-24 at the funerale a woman came and sang the following song.”

Lyke Wake Dirge

This ae neet, this ae neet,
Every neet and all,
Fire an’ fleet an’ candleleet,
And Christ receive thy saul.

If thou from here our wake has passed,
Every neet and all,
To Whinny Moor thou comes at last,
And Christ receive thy saul.

And if ever thou gavest hosen or shoen,
Every neet and all,
Then sit ye down and put them on,
And Christ receive thy saul.

But if hosen or shoen thou ne’er gavest nane,
Every neet and all,
The whinny will prick thee to thy bare bane,
And Christ receive thy saul.

From Whinny Moor when thou mayst pass,
Every neet and all,
To Brig o’ Dread thou comest at last,
And Christ receive thy saul.

From Brig o’ Dread when thou may’st pass,
Every neet and all,
To Purgatory thou comest at last,
And Christ receive thy saul.

And if ever thou gavest meat or drink,
Every neet and all,
The fire will never make thee shrink,
And Christ receive thy saul

But if meat nor drink thou ne’er gav’st nane,
Every neet and all,
The fire will burn thee to thy bare bane,
And Christ receive thy saul.

This ae neet, this ae neet,
Every neet and all,
Fire an’ fleet an’ candleleet,
And Christ receive thy saul.

The following is an extract from ‘Lyke Wake Walk” by Bill Cowley . . .

“Wake” means the watching over a corpse, and “Lyke” is the corpse itself- as in the “lych” gate of a church-c/f. German “leich “. … there is no suggestion that corpses were carried over the Lyke Wake Walk, and the connection between Walk and Dirge is merely that members of the first party to do the Walk, like many who have done it since, finding themselves in the middle of Wheeldale Moor at 3 a.m. felt a great sympathy with all the souls who have to do such a crossing, and a real affection for the poetry of the Dirge-its stark simplicity, repetitions, and dramatic power. Perhaps only those who have crossed Wheeldale or Fylingdales Moors with storm and darkness threatening can fully appreciate the beauty of the Lyke Wake Dirge.

The BabbleLingua website has a translation of the dialect poem into modern English alongside a version of the original dirge. The website also includes video links to the song being sung by both ‘The young Tradition’ and by ‘Pentangle’. Click on the link below to visit.

Lyke Wake Dirge

Haworth Churchyard at dusk – Yorkshire … WHB – 1983

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I Remember The Bellows

Posted on August 28, 2016 by Roland's Ragbag

I grew up in a staunch Methodist household, the son of the village blacksmith and farrier, living and working on the edge of the North Yorkshire Moors.

Two abiding memories of my early years were –

on weekdays, of pumping the bellows to maintain the heat of the fire in my father’s forge, and

on Sundays, of being concealed behind the chapel organ, pumping the bellows to maintain the air to the pipes during the hymn singing.

For good or ill, BELLOWS thus became a significant part of my childhood, and I recently recalled these formative experiences in the following, light-hearted verses.