A monthly series of simple Photo Challenges at Landmarks around Yorkshire, a Desktop Background showing the suggested shot to re-create will be listed at www.yorkshiregeocaching.co.uk
The Challenge here is simple, be photographed inside the Circle.
The ‘Charm Bracelet’ is one of three sculptures at Huntcliff, near Saltburn-by-the-Sea, in the Cleveland district of North Yorkshire, England, created in 1990 by sculptor Richard Farrington. The charms on the bracelet represent aspects of local life: a Cleveland Bay horse, a starfish, a cat after Cat Nab, a pigeon to celebrate the local pastime of pigeon fancying, a Mermaid, a Mermaid’s Purse (the egg case of the Dog Fish) and a Thor’s Hammer representing the Viking settlement of the area.
The Huntcliff was the site of a Roman signal station built to warn against Anglo-Saxon raids from Denmark and Germany. By 410 AD the Roman’s had deserted Britain, leaving Saltburn's Roman tower to be defended by a small group of Romanised Britons. They suffered a grim fate when it was eventually overrun, all being murdered and their bodies dumped in a nearby well, where they were finally discovered in an excavation in 1923.
The Anglo-Saxons settled along the Cleveland coast and named a local stream Sealt-Burna, meaning the salty stream, either because of its salty water or because of the salt-like alum found in the neighbourhood. The Vikings arrived three centuries later and changed the names of all the local ‘burns’ to ‘becks’. The settlement on the Salt Burn retained its name, but the stream became known as the Skelton Beck.
The site of the sculpture is now a popular place for marriage ceremonies, and is managed by The National Trust.
