MORE YORKSHIRE MOORS AND SEACOAST

Climbing up Sutton Bank into the North York Moors National Park begins from a tiny village with an absolutely appropriate name. Sutton-under-Whitestonecliffe nestles in gently rolling patchwork quilt farmland not far from some of England’s most starkly beautiful high country. Of course, with it’s tallest peak reaching a height of only 3200 feet, England doesn’t have any very high country; but on the moors under threatening skies the land seems remote, wild, and distant. The heather isn’t purple in September, but burnt umber and maroon swatches cover the landscape. Clouds seem to rise up out of the land.

In Whitby the North Sea slips into the harbor and at Robin Hood’s Bay seven or eight miles to the south, smashing waves crash against stone houses build at the end of the single narrow street that slips down to the water’s edge. It’s easy to see why the Leed’s photographer Thomas Sutcliffe chose to do most of his work in the Whitby area.