Danby Beacon

I love finding something perched up on a hill especially a fab landmark you can see from a distance. Fortunately for my Glamorous Assistant this was one of those that you can drive right up to, so no hiking required.

This belta is the Danby Beacon sitting on top of a hill called errr.... Danby Beacon. So the Danby Beacon beacon?

The metal beacon looks fairly modern and that's because it is. This isn't some ancient ironwork that has been standing here for hundreds of years, it's actually a replacement beacon from 2008.

The beacon was designed by sculptor James Godbold, with steel fire and wind motifs set on a stone base made to echo the shape of the ancient mounds in the surrounding landscape. So while the beacon itself is modern, it is giving a nod to the much older history under your feet.

The hilltop is not just here to give you a cracking view and blast your face off with moorland wind. Under and around the beacon is a prehistoric round barrow, a Bronze Age burial mound. It's recorded as around 22 metres across and up to 2.5 metres high, made from earth and stone.

There are loads of other prehistoric remains in the wider landscape too, but this particular mound is recorded separately as the Danby Beacon round barrow. So before we get to warning fires, radar stations and giant masts, this was already a prehistoric burial place. People were using this hill thousands of years ago, long before anyone was scanning the sky or worrying about enemy aircraft.

The name Danby Beacon comes from its later use as a signalling site. Beacons were warning fires, placed on high ground so they could be seen from far away. Historic England notes that the mound was reused from at least the early post medieval period for this purpose.

For any Lord Of The Rings fans that is a massive moment in the last film/book where a beacon is lit in Gondor causing a chain of other beacons to also be lit, calling for help. In the case of Danby Beacon, they were more to warn people of danger. Hopefully not from orcs!

Here is an example illustration from Merv our Fabulous North AI, who likes to refer to himself as Merv the Magnificent.

The sprawling landscape here is very open, so it is easy to see why this kind of high ground was chosen for beacon signalling. The exact date Danby Beacon was first used as a warning beacon is not known, but Historic England records that the prehistoric mound was reused from at least the early post medieval period as a beacon site.

As you can spy in the photo, there is also a trig point up here too! So a double bagging.

Then, in the late 1930s, the story took a very different turn. RAF Danby Beacon was built in 1937 as a Chain Home early warning radar station to provide long range detection for raids approaching the north Midlands and the industrial cities of northern England. This was not just a little hut with someone peering through binoculars and hoping for the best.

The site was dominated by eight tall radar masts, with four timber receiver towers around 240 feet high and four steel transmitter towers recorded at around 350 to 360 feet. Sitting on an already exposed hilltop, they must have made Danby Beacon look completely different to the quiet moorland landmark we see today.

One of the most important moments linked to the station came on 3 February 1940. Operators at RAF Danby Beacon detected a German Heinkel He 111, and their information helped guide Flight Lieutenant Peter Townsend to intercept and shoot it down over Whitby. The North York Moors National Park records this as the first enemy aircraft to be downed over English soil since the First World War.

The station did not just disappear after the Second World War either. It continued in use during the Cold War years, when early warning was still a vital part of Britain's air defence. RAF Danby Beacon finally closed in 1957 and the massive masts were later removed.

The main structures are gone, so do not march up expecting a full wartime base with a gift shop and a man called Derek selling fridge magnets. What does survive is much more subtle. There are very limited remains nearby and you might spy traces of concrete roads and plinths.

The replacement beacon was commissioned by the Danby Beacon Trust and erected in 2008. In addition to the trig point there is also a toposcope nearby to help you get your bearings and see what you are looking at in the distance.

It was erected in 1994 by Danby Parish Council to celebrate their centenary.

So Danby Beacon has been a Bronze Age burial place, a warning site, a wartime shield and now a modern landmark. It is a hill that has been used for burial, warning, watching and remembering for thousands of years. Not bad for a little bump in the ground.