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Fieldnotes
| Yeh man, Roseberry Topping is "Odin's Hill", Cleveland's very own mini Matterhorn may look imposing but is really quite an easy climb. Geologically speaking Roseberry is an outlier just like it's companion, Freyas hill at Freeborough. Leave the road at Newton under Roseberry and walk up to the lovely woods. if you look hard you can still see evidence of the ironstone mining activity. From there you gradually traipse up to the foot of the hill. A few years ago the slopes were becoming badly eroded so the conservation corp helicoptered in all these lovely sandstone flag stones, that had once graced the floors of now redundant Yorkshire mills, and created a nice winding climb up to the summit. The graffitti carved into the rocks at the top is great and you can spend a few hours just checking it out. The views across the beautiful Vale of Cleveland are fantastic.(the cleveland bay horse was a charioteers horse for the romans and later became the breeding stock for the american pony express). The hill used to be shaped like a sugarloaf until just before the first world war when the whole western face collapsed due to ironstone mining. The area has had a continuous draw for folk from the neolithic onwards. Great Ayton moor (1/2 a mile away) has one of the North-East's very few Long cairns containing a stone chamber, and is well worth checking out. A bronze age bronzesmith's hoard was discovered on the slopes of Roseberry Topping and is now in Sheffield Museum. occupation of Great Ayton Moor continued into the iron age as can be seen by the lovely square walled enclosure, the recovered pottery and pollen dated the site to 110Bc. Also just beside Roseberry is the Cleveland Dyke, a ridge of intruded molten lava from 58 million years ago, best seen in cliff rigg quarry where it was quarried for cobble stones. The whole area around Roseberry is dotted with burials, ancient and modern mine workings (Iron , Jet & alum) . You could spend a week just traipsing around the area and still miss sites. For all you carnivores, Petch, the butcher of Great Ayton, has the best pork pies in the world, bar none. Two doors down is the Royal Oak, which serves a wicked pint of anything you desire. |
Posted by fitzcoraldo27th January 2002ce Edited 3rd April 2003ce
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