Hodge Beck is a stream that flows through the
North York Moors national park in
North Yorkshire
North Yorkshire is the largest ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county (lieutenancy area) in England, covering an area of . Around 40% of the county is covered by National parks of the United Kingdom, national parks, including most of ...
, England. It is a tributary of the
River Dove which it joins near
Welburn south of
Kirkbymoorside
Kirkbymoorside () is a market town and civil parish in the Ryedale district in North Yorkshire, England. It is north of York, It is also midway between Pickering and Helmsley, on the edge of the North York Moors National Park. It had a populat ...
. The beck is long and has a total catchment area of .
Course
The beck rises on the flanks of
Round Hill in the Cleveland Hills of the North York Moors and flows south through
Bransdale
Bransdale is a valley running south through North Yorkshire, England, and part of the North York Moors National Park. Sandwiched between Bilsdale to the west and Farndale to the east, it is formed from the dales of Bransdale itself at the ...
to reach
Cockayne
Cockaigne or Cockayne () is a land of plenty in medieval myth, an imaginary place of extreme luxury and ease where physical comforts and pleasures are always immediately at hand and where the harshness of medieval peasant life does not exist. S ...
where it is joined by Bloworth Slack.
[ It continues south to meet Ouse Gill, another tributary before it flows through Sleightholme Dale and Kirkdale where it is forded by a minor road.][
The beck often runs dry at this point as it disappears into the local limestone bedrock in the summer months. Near the Kirkdale ford, is ]Kirkdale Cave
Kirkdale Cave is a cave and fossil site located in Kirkdale near Kirkbymoorside in the Vale of Pickering, North Yorkshire, England. The cave was discovered by workmen in 1821, and was found to contain fossilized bones of a variety of mammals ...
, where the fossilised remains of Pleistocene megafauna
Pleistocene megafauna is the set of large animals that lived on Earth during the Pleistocene epoch. Pleistocene megafauna became extinct during the Quaternary extinction event resulting in substantial changes to ecosystems globally. The role of ...
were found.Slingsby Aviation
Slingsby Aviation was a British aircraft manufacturer based in Kirkbymoorside, North Yorkshire, England. The company was founded to design and build gliders and sailplanes. From the early 1930s to around 1970 it built over 50% of all British ...
airstrip before reaching the River Dove.[
]
Hydrology
The flow of the beck has been measured in its upper and middle reaches since 1936. The upper gauge at Bransdale recorded an average flow of but was closed in the 1970s. It was replaced by a gauging station
A stream gauge, streamgage or stream gauging station is a location used by hydrologists or environmental scientists to monitor and test terrestrial bodies of water. Hydrometric measurements of water level surface elevation (" stage") and/or vol ...
at Cherry Farm in Sleightholme Dale, where the record from 1974 shows that the catchment
A drainage basin is an area of land where all flowing surface water converges to a single point, such as a river mouth, or flows into another body of water, such as a lake or ocean. A basin is separated from adjacent basins by a perimeter, t ...
of to the gauging station yielded an average flow of .[
The catchment upstream of the station has an average annual rainfall of and a maximum altitude of on Round Hill at the beck's source.][
]
See also
*List of rivers of England
This is a list of rivers of England, organised geographically and taken anti-clockwise around the English coast where the various rivers discharge into the surrounding seas, from the Solway Firth on the Scottish border to the Welsh Dee on the Wel ...
References
External links
Hodge Beck water levels at Cherry Farm
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hodge
Rivers of North Yorkshire