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Fire, Seaweed and a Green Lady: The Legends of Dunnottar Castle
Some places earn their legends. Dunnottar Castle, two miles south of Stonehaven on Scotland’s north-east coast, is one of them. Perched on a sheer clifftop above the North Sea, it has been collecting stories for over fifteen hundred years — and frankly shows no sign of stopping. It starts early. A chapel here is said…
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What Happens When a Scottish Earl Falls in Love With Germany
Some buildings serve a purpose. Kinnoull Tower is not one of them — and that is precisely the point. Perched on a rocky outcrop near the 222-metre summit of Kinnoull Hill, above the winding River Tay outside Perth, the tower is a folly.  It was never a fortress. Nobody defended it. Nobody lived in…
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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 years. Or…
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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…
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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…
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Elm Houses: A Story of Two Bransdale Farms
Tucked into a remote part of Bransdale, Elm Houses has a history 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 1780 records its…
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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 hole theory” — the tall story that John Marley had stumbled upon Eston’s underground riches…
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A New View, a New Muddle
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…
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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…
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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…
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