Doug Shepherd's photos with the keyword: Green

One from the archives Hackness is a village and civil parish in the Scarborough district of the county of North Yorkshire, England. It lies within the North York Moors National Park, and is situated at the foot of two moorland valleys, Lowdale and Highdale. The parish population rose from 125 in the 2001 UK census to 221 in the 2011 UK census. Hackness is mentioned as the site of a double monastery or nunnery by *Bede, writing in the early 8th century. The present Church of Saint Peter is a Grade I listed building, parts of which date from the 11th century. There have been two monastic foundations at Hackness, first an Anglo-Saxon nunnery founded in 680 and second a cell of Whitby Abbey that was used as a refuge when pirates forced the monks away from the coast. The original establishment was a nunnery founded by **St. Hild or Hilda of Whitby in 680, the year of her death. According to legend the bells of Hackness tolled at the moment St. Hild died fourteen miles away in Whitby. Hackness Hall and its landscape gardens were created in the 1790s. The house, a Grade I listed building, was commissioned by Sir Richard Van den Bempde-Johnstone, who had inherited the estate through his mother. *Bede (672/3 – 26 May 735), also known as Saint Bede, The Venerable Bede, and Bede the Venerable, was an English monk at the monastery of St Peter and its companion monastery of St Paul in the Kingdom of Northumbria of the Angles (contemporarily Monkwearmouth–Jarrow Abbey in Tyne and Wear, England). **Hild (614 - 17 November 680) is a significant figure in the history of English Christianity. As the abbess of Whitby – a monastery for both men and women – she led one of the most important religious centres in the Anglo-Saxon world. In 664 Hild’s monastery hosted the Synod of Whitby, which set the course for the future of Christianity in England. A lot of history for a small village

Top left - Buttercup Top right - Yellow rattle Bottom left Forget-me-not Bottom right - Purple clover

This Yellow Pimpernel was found growing on ground that had, until a few days before the picture was taken, been completely churned up by tree felling machinery - a survivor for sure.

The common name cuckooflower derives from the formation of the plant's flowers at around the same time as the arrival each spring of the first cuckoos in the British Isles

Best enlarged Peel towers (also spelt pele) are small fortified keeps or tower houses, built along the English and Scottish borders in the Scottish Marches and North of England, intended as watch towers where signal fires could be lit by the garrison to warn of approaching danger. Ayton Castle sits on the edge of a plateau overlooking the River Derwent and the villages of East and West Ayton. It was built in the late 14th century, probably by Sir Ralph Eure, and was a typical Northern tower house. Eure was from Northumberland, where the tower house was a familiar site, and married the Ayton heiress. The surviving ruins reach their full height at one corner, and enough survives to give us a fairly clear idea of the castle's original layout. The tower was three stories high. There were two rooms on the ground floor. The original entrance was on the north-west end wall, and went into the kitchen. From there stairs led up to the first storey hall, and on up to the top floor. At the opposite end of the hall was another flight of stairs, which provided the only access to the other ground floor room. This first floor probably contained a single great hall, with bed chambers or a solar on the top floor. There are corbels on the surviving top corner, suggesting that there was a square turret or similar structure at each corner, connected by a wall-walk running behind battlements. The castle was a high quality building, built using well-shaped ashlars and with decorative string courses on the outer walls. Some have speculated that John Lewyn, the master mason of Bolton Castle, may have been involved in the construction of Ayton Castle. The surviving stone tower didn’t stand alone, and traces of earthworks also survive, suggesting that it was inside an enclosure, possibly a full scale bailey. Stone from the castle was later used to build the bridge over the Derwent between the villages of West Ayton and East Ayton. William, Lord Eure, still owned a house in West Ayton in 1569, but it appears to have fallen into disrepair fairly soon after this date.

Best enlarged Trotternish or Tròndairnis (Scottish Gaelic) is the northernmost peninsula of the Isle of Skye, in Scotland. One of its more well-known features is the Trotternish Ridge and landslip, a massive landslide that runs almost the full length of the peninsula, some 30 kilometres (19 mi). The landslip contains two of Skye's most famous landmarks: the Old Man of Storr, an isolated rocky pinnacle, and the Quiraing, an area of dramatic and unusual rock formations. The Quiraing (in Gaelic: 'Cuith-Raing') is a landslip on the eastern face of Meall na Suiramach, the northernmost summit of the Trotternish on the Isle of Skye, Scotland. The whole of the Trotternish Ridge escarpment was formed by a great series of landslips; the Quiraing is the only part of the slip still moving, the road at its base, near Flodigarry, requires repairs each year. Staffin (Scottish Gaelic: Stafain) is a district with the Gaelic name An Taobh Sear, which translates as 'the East Side', on the northeast coast of the Trotternish peninsula of the island of Skye. It is located on the A855 road about 17 miles (27 km) north of Portree and is overlooked by the Trotternish Ridge with the famous rock formations of The Storr and the Quirang. The district comprises 23 townships made up of, from south to north, Rigg, Tote, Lealt, Lonfearn, Grealin, Breackry, Cul-nan-cnoc, Bhaltos, Raiseburgh, Ellishader, Garafad, Clachan, Garros, Marrishader, Maligar, Stenscholl, Brogaig, Sartle, Glasphein, Digg, Dunan, Flodigarry and Greap. The Kilmartin River runs northwards through the village. From where it reaches the sea a rocky shore leads east to a slipway at An Corran. Here a local resident found a slab bearing a dinosaur track, probably made by a small ornithopod. Experts subsequently found more dinosaur prints of up to 50 cm, the largest found in Scotland, made by a creature similar to Megalosaurus. At about 160 million years old they are the youngest dinosaur remains to be found in Scotland. A Mesolithic hunter-gatherer site dating to the 7th millennium BC at An Corran is one of the oldest archaeological sites in Scotland. Its occupation is probably linked to that of the rock shelter at Sand, Applecross on the coast of Wester Ross. In the modern era this part of Skye retains a strong Gaelic identity with 61 per cent of the local population recorded as speaking the language in 2001. In September 2010,Comunn na Gàidhlig named Staffin as their "Gaelic Community of the Year", in the first year this competition has run. In 2011 it was reported that Staffin Island may be the last in Scotland where the old tradition of having cattle swim between grazings is still carried out. Crofter Iain MacDonald, who used to swim with the animals, now uses a boat to encourage them to swim from Staffin Island to Skye in early spring and back again in October.

Best enlarged *No idea what Urr means - perhaps the inhabitants of the glen could not decide what to call it;-))

Yewbarrow is a fell in the English Lake District which lies immediately north of the head of Wast Water. It is 628 metres high and the name is derived from the past prevalence of yew trees on the fell and its boat or 'barrow' shape. The cloud shrouded peak to the right is Great Gable which is 899 metres high, appearing as a pyramid from Wasdale (hence its name), but as a dome from most other directions.