Reeth
Museum's Digital Image Archive has beeen
transfered to the Resource Centre in
Keld.
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| SWAAG Wildflower walk – July 2024 |
A group of 9 met at Rukin’s car park in Keld for a short walk led by Sue Knight and Janet Bethune. The walk was about a mile in total to allow for the slow pace needed for adequate discussion of the flowers and grasses which were encountered. The group were provided with hand-lenses and a list of about 70 plants they were likely to see. The aim of the walk was to point out distinguishing features that would help people remember the plants.
We started with the common buttercup and how to separate Meadow and Creeping Buttercups and then focused on a range of grasses. The commonest was the soft, downy Yorkshire Fog. One member wondered if references to putting cows out into the “fog” and producing “fog cheese” from their milk could be a reference to this . A special plant for the northern dales was Melancholy Thistle, which put on a superb show. In spite of being a thistle, it has no spines. We also tackled a couple of ferns, with lenses out so the shape of the fronds could be checked.
Everyone managed to see the subtle differences between Male Fern and Lady Fern, the latter having a more delicate appearance! Colour was provided by the Monkey Flower, Meadowsweet and Common Spotted orchid. The sense of smell can also be used to help name a flower and the horrid smell of Woundwort and Herb Robert is not easily forgotten. We ended by testing the sense of smell on a more pleasant note by comparing Garden Mint and Water Mint, the latter having a fresher, spearminty smell.
We returned to the car park as the heavens opened and pleased that the walk had been dry. |
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| Common Spotted Orchid |
Hedge Wound Wort |
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| Small Copper on a Melancholy Thistle |
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| News Record: 189 Updated: 18-07-2024 11:21:36 |
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| A Solar Eclipse and a Viking Settlement |
We had two very different talks in our June meeting. In the first Les Knight spoke about the 1927 solar eclipse. Many SWAAG members will have spotted the yellow AA sign, commemorating the centre line of totality, as they drive into Richmond from Swaledale. There was great excitement prior to the event, the newspapers printed special supplements, the Ordnance Survey produced a map, and plans were laid to set up telescopes along the line of totality. Railway companies advertised excursions to places such as Richmond, Southport and Blackpool. LNER alone had 37 trains scheduled for the occasion. Les concluded that this was probably one of the greatest mass movements in British history, with over 3 million people being transported, by various means, to the north of England. In Richmond there were lectures, dances and whist drives to celebrate and 35,000 people went to Richmond racecourse to watch on the day. Virginia Woolf, a keen astronomer, went to Richmond too.
Sadly, from a weather point of view the 29th of June wasn’t the best of days – there was almost complete cloud cover. A plane was launched from Catterick, and a hot air balloon was blown out into the Irish Sea in its ill-fated attempt to get a better view. The best photo was obtained by the Astronomer Royal in the grounds of Giggleswick School. The headline in the Darlington and Stockton Times after the event was “The Eclipsed Eclipse”.
Alan Mills followed with a talk about his visit to the Norse settlement of L’Anse aux Meadows, on Newfoundland, in Canada. Excavated in the 1960s, by Anne Stine Ingstad, it provides conclusive evidence that the Vikings arrived in the Americas nearly 500 years before Christopher Columbus. The site contains the remains of eight buildings and probably supported 60 to 100 people over a 20-to-30-year period. Workshops were also found together with typical Norse artefacts. The site may not have been occupied all year round.
The Norse sagas, which were written down in the 13th century, refer to exploration west of Greenland and mention the settlement of “Vinland”. Whether this was L’Anse aux Meadows is debatable. Butternuts, which don’t grow in Newfoundland, were found during the excavation and must have come from further south where perhaps grapes might also have been growing in the wild. As yet no other confirmed Viking settlements have been found in Canada.
J.H. |
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| News Record: 188 Updated: 11-07-2024 16:20:23 |
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| Addlebrough June 2024 |
The aim of the walk was to start from the village of Thornton Rust in Wensleydale to the summit of Addlebrough and to view the bronze age burial mound and cup marked stones on the summit.
The nine of us met in the small car park in Thornton Rust, a small village on the south side of Wensleydale. After reading the information board about the sheep dip in the stream next to the car park we set off at 10.30am. After a few hundred metres along a walled track, we reached the fields heading to the heathland below Addlebrough. Eventually after a few ladder stiles we reached what could possibly be a large standing stone that had toppled over and from here we got our first view of the bronze age / iron age settlement that was visible on Greenber Edge to the south. We then set off on the steady climb up Addlebrough. Once on the top we were greeted with stunning views of Wensleydale. We could see across to Carperby and the bronze age burial mounds above the village, bronze age settlement at Pen Hill and the henge above Aysgarth which was at the centre of these settlements. We made our way to the south side of the summit where we could view the settlement on Greenber Edge including Stoney Raise cairn which is the largest stone cairn in the northern Pennines measuring 30 metres across and 2 meters high. The settlement is almost one kilometre in length and very visible in the landscape. It had been used many times over the centuries including iron age / Roman and possibly in medieval times.
After lunch we headed around to the north side of the summit looking at various features on the way until we reached the burial mound with some beautiful cup-marked stones on top. This burial has stunning views of the full length of Wensleydale.
We then walked around to the west side of the summit in strong winds to view the remains of some medieval house and field plots of stone which are still visible. From here we could see Semer Water and the huge boulder named the Devil’s Stone that lay below.
The wind was now really strong so we decided to return to Thornton Rust off the front of Addlebrough. On the way we observed lots of natural springs and looked for the many possible burnt mounds that are around Addlebrough and Thornton Moor. Burnt mounds are mounds containing a large pile of burnt stones and a trough that would have contained water from the spring. The hot stones would have been added to the water, these are believed to be bronze age and found all over northern Europe. It is not known whether these are prehistoric saunas, for industrial use such as leather working or of a ritual purpose. Once we had crossed a few more fields we were on the road that led us back to Thornton Rust and the car park. The four-hour round journey took in stunning views of Wensleydale and the rich archaeology in this bronze age landscape.
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| SWAAG Members on the summit of Addlebrough at the bronze-age burial mound with cupped stones |
Greenber Edge Settlement and Stoney Raise Cairn |
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| One of the cupped marked stones on the burial mound, Addlebrough |
Devil’s Stone |
| News Record: 187 Updated: 21-06-2024 11:47:50 |
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