Friday 15th May 2020 - Middlebarrow Quarry and Eaves Wood ( Day 52 0f Lockdown)
After twenty years living in Arnside I am still finding new paths and certainly around Arnside Knott there are paths well established and several feet wide obviously well walked that had no existence whatsoever when I first came here.
I set off to explore a less frequently visited area, but still within easy walking distance of home.
I had only gone a few hundred yards when I found a plaque low down on a garden wall that I must have walked past a hundred times over the years and never seen before.
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| Location of plaque on Black Dyke road |
Afterwards I couldn't resist a Google for 5th September 1782. I am sure the plaque location would have been an open field at the time, but whilst the cows were grazing and the peasants toiling there was a ferocious sea battle afoot off the east coast off Long Island. The American War of Independence was in full swing.
The Action of 5 September 1782 took place during the American War of Independence between two French Navy frigates, Aigle and Gloire, and a lone British 74-gun ship of the line HMS Hector. In a two-day battle, the two frigates severely damaged Hector and only failed to captured her when a British squadron appeared on the horizon. The French withdrew but Hector foundered a few days later after the
Thanks to Wikipedia.
After that exerpt on Wiki, if tales of sea battles and derring-do are to your taste you can read on. There is an account detailing the manoeuvres and sequence of the battle and also the aftermath. You could well be reading a chapter from one of O'Brien's Aubrey/Maturin sagas.
After that drama, as I write, I can't avoid anticlimax for the rest of this quiet pastoral and arboreal walk.
I carried straight on at Middlebarrow Quarry instead of crossing the railway and followed a steep rocky path up the side of the quarry to give me a better than previously seen panoramic view of this now deserted excavation. Nature seems to be making a slow job of re-wilding here.
Unfamiliar northern reaches of Eaves Wood followed with a network of paths I have no recollection of walking before until I arrived at the northern limits of Holgates static caravan empire to make a more familiar descent to Arnside Tower.
CLICK FIRST PHOTO TO ENLARGE
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| The new panoramic view of Middlebarrow Quarry |
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| This was the only one of this route marker I saw or have seen before |
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| Arnside Tower |
The same 'non-drama' has been commemorated a few times in Longridge.
ReplyDeleteIt all stemmed from the famous Monty Python sketch, The Adventures of Ralph Mellish. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qf7rntVimhw
You too could have one - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Cast-Iron-Plaque-Nothing-Happened/dp/B01D2UFHUM/ref=asc_df_B01D2UFHUM/?tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=345423656124&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=17708361739613550514&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=10068
I found this but it was in Great Yarmouth.
ReplyDeleteI think whoever made this sign made a typo and used an 8 instead of a 5. It would be factually correct and even more amusing if it read Sept 5, 1752 because absolutely nothing happened on the that day due to the date changes of the British Calendar Act of 1751.
AlanR - Whatever, it was a welcome "blogger's gift." And an opportunity to re-live the timeless doings of the Monty Python brigade.
ReplyDelete