Letter from the Dales

Where there is a hummock, lambs play the time-honoured game of King of the Castle. Lambs make sudden movement, leaping or joining in mad races across the pastureland, which is good preparation for an independent life in the future.

Sheep divide their time between grazing, chewing and sleeping. By cropping finely, and nibbling at new growth in woodland, they are impoverishing our landscape and slowly eating themselves out of house and home.

The other day, while descending from Pen Hill, I passed through several upland pastures that once would have been well-stocked but are now covered with Nardus grass and rushes. Dr J A Farrer, who presides over the Ingleborough estate, has referred to Nardus stricta as "sheep-resistant grass".

For a thousand years and more, since the Norsefolk ran their sheep on the quiet hills, their guzzling led to the dale-country having a trim and tidy appearance. Ingleborough, one of the big Pennine flat-tops, has an austere look. Intense grazing by sheep during and since the Second World War stripped the heather from dry ridges and robbed the great hill of the glow that came from the flowering of the ling.

Sheep have browsed in native woodland, preventing natural regeneration of timber. English Nature and the Dales National Park, with the help of some local Scouts, helped to redress the situation by replanting an extension to the Colt Park reserve, in North Ribblesdale.

Peter Corkhill, of English Nature, commending the Scouts, said that through their efforts they have not only reinvigorated a special place but recreated habitats for plants and animals. "In 20 years, they will be able to return and see the difference they have made."

Colt Park Wood, which was purchased by the old Nature Conservancy in 1959, is something special in the context of the Yorkshire Dales, being a rare survivor of woodland that once covered much of the high limestone area. It lies within the Ingleborough National Nature Reserve.

The tract of aboriginal ash wood was described by the botanist J E Lousley as "one of the most remarkable and uncanny in Britain". Colt Park's woodland situation affords shelter and greater humility to plants and stimulates the growth of mosses and lichen on the rock. With its deep grykes, Colt Park is a dangerous place for the unwary. This botanical wonderland can be seen by those who followed an adjacent path that is sign posted just north of Selside. The Ordnance map shows a green dotted line extending northwards and to the west of Colt Park to a former farmstead, thence across the Settle-Carlisle railway and by the celebrated Salt Lake cottages, rejoining the main road.

Serious-minded botanists obtain a permit from English Nature to enter the reserve itself. They are warned about the basically hazardous terrain.

In summer, the cracks and crannies in Colt Park are disguised by lush growth. An impressive 230 flowering plants have been recorded here. They include the yellow Star of Bethlehem, Angular Solomon's Seal and a plant with the unlovely title of Lesser Prickly Sedge. Lily of the Valley and Baneberry have their seasons of glory.

Ingleborough has lost much of its floral wealth. The summit vegetation, apart from a hardy sedge, has been virtually trampled out. A diminutive form of lady's mantle, now found only in the Ingleborough area, appears to have been successful because it can cope with close grazing by sheep.

The high crags of The Ark, on Ingleborough, were the hunting ground of plant-collectors from the time of John Ray, who travelled this way on horseback in 1677 and jotted down the first English record of the purple saxifrage, a relic from the period immediately after the Ice Age. Ray had been shown the plant by an old soldier, Thomas Willisel, who lived locally.

The late Tom Hey, a Bradford journalist who moved to London, was fond of writing about Dales flowers. He suggested in a letter to me that the purple saxifrage should be re-named "Ingleborough Beauty". This plant is familiar to many people living in lowland areas, having been introduced to the garden rockery.

Cloudberry maintains its grip on a cheerless, peaty terrain. The plant fruits in mid-July and the berry turns yellow when ripe. The 16th century Gerard recorded that cloudberry grew profusely "on Mount Ingleborrow" which he had been told was "the highest in all England."

Cloudberry was said to be so named because it occurred "where the clouds are lower than the tops (of the hills) all winter long." In fact, as Geoffrey Grigson pointed out, the name simply means "hill berry", from the Old English "clud", for hill.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.