I started out with an idea I’d take some photos of Wrelton and Cropton which are both just down the road. However, after a rather fruitless time, inspiration-wise, in Wrelton I followed the road sign to Cawthorn Camps and I’m glad I did.
Another lovely early evening so I expected more cars than the solitary one I saw when I arrived at the car park. I’d been at Cawthorn Camp a month or so previously, when we met up with friends for a walk, and it’s always worth a visit.
The North York Moors National Park website descibes the place:
Nearly 2,000 years ago the Romans built a group of fortifications overlooking the central moorlands of the National Park. This easygoing 1-mile trail offers you the opportunity to discover these remarkable earthworks and to imagine what life must have been like for the legionnaires who built them. The views from the escarpment almost defy description – from this vantage point the splendour of the North York Moors unfolds in front of you. Now known as Cawthorn Roman Camps, the ditches and banks still stand as an impressive reminder of their ingenuity.
The camps were bought by the North York Moors National Park in 1983 to look after the area and to help visitors discover its secrets. Removing trees and scrub from the forts has safeguarded the archaeology. Bracken is also being controlled and footpaths have been made to help reduce the impact of visiting the monument.
The woodland surrounding the encampment is a birch and pine mix so the low dipping sun picks up on the white bark of the birch nicely.
Not many woodland flowers now that summer is in full swing but there were some foxgloves.
I tried the dynamic black and white mode on the Ricoh but discovered on opening the raw files in Luminar that they revert to full colour. Googling it I see this is how it works with raw files, in Lightroom too, so I need to save them as jpgs in camera if I want them as black and white. Not a big deal – better to have the editing flexibility of having raw files so I’ll stick with them.