Beast Cliff

First Visit. I have been fascinated by this grid reference for years but didn't manage my first visit to OV0000 until 29 July 2011. We descended the zig-zag path down the cliffs from the Cleveland Way near Ravenscar and I left my daughter and her friends on the shore at NZ993012 while I went solo over the boulders heading south. At OV000000 I found a dead Roe Deer at the top of the beach - mostly bones with salt-dried skin still attached. I guessed that it had tumbled down the cliff. On the way back I found a fixed rope from the shore to the undercliff and I hauled myself up across the shaly outcrop, hoping to find the old path along the undercliff. Then problems started. The path became overgrown and I got totally tangled up in gorse and briar. I was wearing shorts and my legs were well lacerated. Eventually I managed to hack my way back to the top of the fixed rope and abseiled down to the shore. I wasted over an hour with this foolish detour. By then the tide was coming in and I had to do some wading between the boulders, but the cool sea water soothed my hot bloody legs. OV0000 Revisited 24 October 2013, a sunny warm autumn day with a low tide. A half decent fisherman's path with 6 or 7 fixed ropes takes you down to the shore at NZ993012. Then it was a scramble over the boulder shore for about 1400 metres down to OV000000. My main aim on this trip was to take some insect samples for the national and Yorkshire recording schemes (insects are mapped by grid reference too!) Small Tortoiseshell butterflies were flying down the shore, and a micromoth species was out in good numbers. I also found a cranefly, a caterpillar, a snail-killing fly, three species of woodlice, a millipede, an earthworm, a caddis fly, two different ground beetles, a parasitic wasp and a planthopper. Not bad for late October! So now OV00 will appear on some invertebrate distribution maps. By the time I had bouldered back along the shore and hauled myself up the cliff path I was pretty tired and ready for a cuppa. But it was much easier with the tide out.

Image captured with telephoto lens.

Attempting to reach Myriad OV but failed due to safety.

This photo was taken from NZ9900, within five minutes of low tide. It shows land in all of NZ9900, OV0000, SE9999 and TA0099. I have submitted it for the 'difficult' myriad OV to enable the best link with another photo of that square. There is also a link to a photo in TA0099. For those Geograph-ers who, like me, don't welcome a 3 km (each way) trip across large, unstable and slimy boulders to reach the actual square OV0000, location NZ99610017 provides the best, indeed the only worthwhile view of the square. There is a useful bench there, though I doubt that the National Park authorities placed it with the specific objective of granting the view of OV0000 ! The shore in OV0000 is in the centre of the photo, and is shown in greater detail in OV0000 : The shore in square OV0000. Further away is another stretch of shore at TA00259960; this is shown in TA0099 : The shoreline north-east of Prospect House Farm. Both photos were taken from the same spot, and at the same time as this one.

A difficult square to get as a Supplemental, and an even more difficult one to visit! This was taken within five minutes of low tide. OV0000 : The coastline near Common Cliff, taken from the same spot at the same time, puts this shot in the context of the wider landscape.

OV 0000 is a unique square being the sole land representative of the OV myriad. It only just qualifies with around 10 square metres of boulders above the high tide mark. The low tide level is a good 50 metres away and well displayed in this photo. Taking an average of GPS fixes I placed a buoy on the approximate location of OV 000000 which marks the intersection of the four myriads OV, TA, SE and NZ. Each of these has a different first letter because each belongs to a different 500 kilometre square. OV 000000 is the only point in the UK where four such giant myriads intersect.

Although War Dike is only 500 metres away from OV000000, a direct ascent is very challenging. It begins up a short ladder in the shallow gully (top centre of the picture) and then traverses through dense undergrowth and boulder fields with hidden chasms before fighting a way through the rather unstable part of Beast Cliff directly under the Cleveland Way.

The gull is sitting on a ship's boiler exposed at low tide and possibly from the Premier, a Grimsby trawler wrecked in 1923. The North Yorkshire coastline is littered with wrecks.

The corroded remains of a rawl-bolt placed in 1987 to secure a radio mast. Because of its difficult access and tiny land surface OV is a highly prized objective for amateur radio enthusiasts.

OV lies at sea level just beyond Rocky Point which is below the coastal outline just above and right of centre of this photo. Direct access to OV from the Cleveland Way is problematical because of local topography. The upper band of cliffs top right is composed of oolitic limestone and the lower band just above the sea of very unstable shale and sandstone. The two bands are separated by the undercliff, a broad shelf or plateau, which is thickly vegetated especially in summer.

This view, taken in July 1987 shows an 8m high Amateur Radio Mast consisting of a tree-trunk bolted via a metal stanchion to a large rock, just inside OV000 square at OV 00011 00017. This position has since been confirmed via GPS averaging but was at the time determined via a mixture of triangulation and linear measurement. The final section of the safeguarded route, built between March & July 1987 can be seen down the lower 45m cliff. The key to this was a 4.3m ladder, purpose built from local materials for direct access into OV0000. This is shown (at top of frame) fixed to the vertical rock-face within SE9999 square and accessible directly from Beast Cliff’s Plateau, which in turn was accessible down the upper cliff from the Cleveland Way near War Dike Gate. Foreshore rocks (out of frame) to the left are in TA0099 whilst some pictured on the right are within NZ9900. This route was gradually destroyed without trace over a 3-year period by storms starting 4th March 1999. These caused major rock-falls and though the tidal foreshore in the foreground, remains largely unchanged, the cliff shown here is bare of vegetation, unrecognisable and unstable. A replacement route, 70m NW was opened up on 16th April 2006 but its condition as of January 2009 is unknown. Photo taken 7th July 1987 – G4YSS.

After following Peter Standing's excellent directions OV0000 : Below Beast Cliff but stepping onto the slippery boulders three quarters of a mile to the north on a slippery January day rather than during the summer, I decided (wrongly) to take the more direct route to OV000000 along the lower cliffs instead. This shot, tantalizingly just outside the elusive gridsquare shows how close I was and how hard it would have been to get back up without sprouting wings! Just look at these curved overhangs in the soft cliff face. The erosion here is quite evident as my GPS map indicated I was much further away from the cliff edge instead of being perilously close. Hats off to Peter and partner NZ9900 : En route to OV 0000 (2) for reaching what must be one of the top gridsquares to add to ones Geograph collection. Psalm 55 : 6 "I said, “Oh, that I had the wings of a dove! I would fly away and be at rest."

The disused Staintondale station.

Looking SW from the old railway line towards Staintondale.

Looking towards Ravenscar.