Free Online at www.coastalviewandmoornews.co.uk The Community Newspaper for the Towns and Villages of East Cleveland, Redcar & North York Moors, telling the real news and views of the people of our region Issue 73 September - October 2016
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Eston Hills - a monumental task...
T
By Craig Hornby
hree years ago, I helped found The Friends of Eston Hills with a group of local women, three of whom were teaching assistants in a local primary school. We wanted to raise funds to buy land on the privately-owned eastern half of Eston Hills. The site had suddenly come on the market. 220 acres for £425k. We were nothing if not wildly ambitious! We wanted to see the whole site publicly-owned and a conservation programme put into action. The last conservation work was carried out by Cleveland County Council in the 90s. 20 years on and Eston hills are in their worst state ever with fly-tipping, burnt out cars and all the main footpaths absolutely trashed by 4x4s, quad bikes and motorbikes. As reported in this paper, in early 2014, after raising £15k in public donations in just six weeks, we bought a three acre plot at the summit. Eston Nab became publicly owned for the first time ever! We followed this with some epic litter picks with an army of volunteers. We badgered the Police and Council to remove all the car wrecks and install substantial barriers at all access points to stop anymore. It’s taken a while, but thanks to the aforementioned, barriers are now in place at Eston and Lazenby with Flatts Lane soon to complete the task. Another persistent issue has been an illegal flagpole at the Nab. It has been erected repeatedly for three years by a local man and taken down repeatedly by the local authority. The reason for its removal was lack of planning permission and also because the Nab is a protected
Inside:
archaeological site of national importance no less. It was popular though and it gave us an idea... Buying the rest of the site was still the dream but a big ask. We needed an ambitious but attainable goal for the shorter term to build the project. We decided on a new Monument for the Nab charting the epic history of the site (Mesolithic, Bronze Age and Iron Age archaeology, site of a Napoleonic Beacon and the world’s biggest ironstone mine was once beneath). The Monument would feature a memorial to the 375 men and boys that were killed in the mine and fly a legitimate flag in their honour. As a solution for the illegal one, it could help us get approval for the Monument. We approached Historic England, the govt. agency in charge of ancient sites. They told us that the restrictions can be relaxed if a site is in bad shape and an initiative could sufficiently improve it. An archaeological dig would be a pre-requisite. I presented the idea to the Council bosses. They liked it a lot. There was a chance we could pull this off... I set about the research and design and approached Greg Sills of Saltburn-based Scurator Ltd. to get proper plans drawn up. Greg was keen to help and what we ended up with was a series of excellent digital impressions of the piece in situ. In August, we unveiled them to the press and public. We needed to gauge public opinion before approaching Historic England or going after funding. The feedback has been fascinating. It has been called “visionary” and a Continued on page 6 ►►►
12 page Summer NCS Times