Бримхэм-Рокс: Уникальные скальные образования Северного Йоркшира

Site of Special Scientific Interest in North Yorkshire, England

Brimham Rocks, once known as Brimham Crags, is a 183.9 hectare (454 acre) biological Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) and Geological Conservation Review (GCR) site, 8 miles (13 km) north west of Harrogate, North Yorkshire, England, on Brimham Moor in the Nidderdale Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The site, notified as SSSI in 1958, is an outcrop of Millstone Grit, with small areas of birch woodland and a large area of wet and dry heath. The site is known for its water and weather eroded rocks, which were formed over 325 million years ago and have assumed fantastic shapes. 8 mile (13 km) south of Ripon on Brimham Moor in the Nidderdale Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty in North Yorkshire. It is 1.5 mile (2 km) north of Summerbridge and 3 mile (5 km) east of Pateley Bridge and the River Nidd. The site is managed by the National Trust along with a visitor's centre, public facilities and a car park. Brimham Rocks is open throughout the year between around 8.30 am and dusk, but on 21 March 2020 closed due to the coronavirus outbreak in the United Kingdom. The site reopened fully in the summer of 2021, following the lifting of the UK Government measures to deal with COVID 19. The site was SSSI notified in 1958, with revisions in 1984 and on 19 February 1988. The site was listed for the value of its geology and because the "heath and bog habitats represent important examples of plant communities, formerly more widespread, which have been reduced by agricultural improvement, drainage and afforestation." Associated with the more well known rocky outcrops, are birch woodland, acidic bogs, wet and dry heath, and plant communities which thrive when sheltered between the rocks and exposed on the moor. The rock which has traditionally been referred to as Millstone Grit, originated as river deposited sands in a delta environment and contains both feldspar and quartz pebbles. Deposition from moving water has resulted in the cross bedding which is very evident in most of the outcrops. Brimham Rocks has been described as "a classic geomorphological site, significant for studies of past and present weathering processes and their contribution to landscape evolution." Although discussion continues around the formation and date of tors such as these throughout Britain, much of the development into the forms displayed at Brimham is likely to have taken place over the last 100,000 years before, during and after the last ice age – the Devensian. Some disintegration of the rock strata may have occurred along weaknesses such as fault and fracture planes whilst still buried. Sub aerial weathering has continued the process. The outcrops were exposed when glacial action, gelifluction and further weathering and water erosion removed the loose material which separated them. Erosion continues, caused by weather and tourist numbers. One possibility for the mushroom shape of some stones is that they were exposed to sandblasting at ground level when an ice cap melted 18,000 years ago, narrowing the bases of outcrops, then they were subject to all over sandblasting when the ice had gone, causing the irregular shapes. Their theories coincided with the growth of Neo Druidism, and followed the 1760 publication of James Macpherson's Fragments of Ancient Poetry. After a lecture in 1786,

In August 2014 the body of Gemma Simpson was found at Brimham Rocks. That December Martin Bell, who had schizophrenia, pleaded guilty to manslaughter, and was sentenced to a minimum of twelve years' imprisonment. In May 2000 he had smoked cannabis with her, "bludgeoned and stabbed" her to death, left her in a bath for some days, dismembered her, then buried her body at a secret location at Brimham Rocks for fourteen years. In July 2014 he confessed to the murder and disclosed the location of the body, at Scarborough police station.

Poet Laureate Simon Armitage was commissioned by the National Trust to write a poem about the rocks. His "Balancing Act" is carved into a stone artwork of the same name created by artist Adrian Riley and stonemason Richard Dawson erected at the rocks in June 2023.

By the Harrogate spa Season of 1838, the summer tourists were arriving in hired carriages, and this was a business opportunity for postmaster Christopher Deighton. However he neglected, not for the first time, to pay the excise duty on the hire of a horse and phaeton in February of that year, and was fined £5 with 17 shillings costs. Magistrate C. Oxley said, "Depend upon it if you go on in this way you will be convicted in the sum of £5 every time, therefore be careful, as it will take away all your profits." By the 1840s, many carriages were hired to take people from Harrogate to Brimham Rocks. With the coming of the railways and a rail station at Dacre in 1862, visitors during the Season at Harrogate spa could more easily take excursions to Brimham Rocks, so tourist numbers increased. By 1906 there was a motor bus service from Dacre Banks Station, although a four in hand carriage could be hired from Harrogate. During the 20th century and the early 21st century, visitor cars were parked among the rocks, but since 1970, the National Trust has maintained a car park near the entrance, and built an accessible pedestrian path to Rocks House (now called Brimham House or the Visitor Centre) from there. However, various accidents have been reported at the Rocks. These include:

In May 2007 Ethan Bradley, a teenage boy on a Breckenbrough School field trip, got into difficulties while climbing the Rocks. His right leg was trapped 12 feet (4 m) above the ground on Oven Rock. It took the North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service several hours to free him with specialist cutting equipment, and the boy was treated and airlifted by the Great North Air Ambulance. The National Trust said that "it feels current warning signs are sufficient and does not plan further safety measures." On 13 February 2016 a 21 year old man fell from a rock stack on the site and injured his back and pelvis. Ten members of the Upper Wharfedale Fell Rescue Association (UWFRA) assisted the paramedics and stretchered the patient to a helicopter run by the Yorkshire Air Ambulance. In July 2017 a forty year old man received "serious leg injuries" having fallen 10 feet (3 m) from a rock stack at the site. The UWFRA assisted an ambulance crew, before the patient was airlifted to a hospital. In March 2020 a male climber aged 43 years was treated by the Yorkshire Ambulance Service at Brimham Rocks after he fell several metres, injuring his back. The UWFRA team carried him to a road ambulance.

As of 2009, around 170 bouldering problems and 200 rock climbing routes have been recorded. More difficult routes were recorded by the Yorkshire Mountaineering Club between 1957 and 1961, although some of their aid climbing methods are not used now. Local climbers Robin and Tony Barley were putting up new routes for ten years or more until the 1970s, being regularly chased off the rocks by the warden, on the grounds of unpaid entrance fees. From 1970 Leeds University Climbing Club began climbing here. Army cadet training takes place here, and from the 1990s climbers have visited the rocks for bouldering.

Beacon Beacon is an ancient, natural promontory. It is just outside the Brimham Rocks SSSI border, at the south end, but being a high point contiguous with the site on Brimham Moor it is connected. Beacons for hilltop communication have been lit here for centuries. In 1803, around 26 such beacons were erected in the West Riding of Yorkshire, including one on Brimham Beacon. "In the year 1887 on the day of Queen Victoria's Jubilee, a great beacon fire was lit here, signalling to others in the distance."

The Noonstone, known locally as Noon Rock, is a natural rock stack just south west of the Brimham Rocks SSSI site, and just east of the Adam's Ale spring. It is on a high point, surrounded by trees, overlooking a small farm house or cottage to the north north east. Before the trees grew up, the rock used to cast a shadow on the cottage at noon. At least until the end of the 18th century, local people used to light fires next to the Noonstone on Midsummer Eve.

Maria Edgeworth's novel Belinda uses Brimham Rocks as a setting of metaphorical balance and moral revelation to the 17 year old protagonist Belinda Portman. The children's television programme Roger and the Rottentrolls was filmed at Brimham Rocks and the site also features in the video for the Bee Gees' song "You Win Again". A scene of series six of Knightmare, another children's programme and adventure game show, saw Brimham Rocks used as a location.