For the Upland Gamekeeper spring is a season of intense activity, a critical time of fast change at the fulcrum between the wild & windy months of winter and the more benign months of summer, when the moors become vibrant with life.
Category Archives: #Lancashire
The History of Read Park
Tucked away on the outskirts of the quiet village of Read, in Lancashire’s Ribble Valley, sits Read Park, a 450 acre estate surrounding Read Hall, a Grade II listed manor house that has been a local seat of power for over half a millennia.
Northern Shores: The Common Tern
Adults are very smart and distinguished in their breeding plumage, sporting a silvery-grey back and upperwings, a clean white underbody, and a distinctive black cap. Their bill is long and orangey-red with a black tip, while their legs are short and red. In flight, they show a buoyant, floating style with narrow, angular wings, often hovering before plunging to catch prey.
A Brief History of St Leonard’s Church in Padiham
St Leonard’s Church stands proudly in the heart of Padiham, Lancashire, and is a striking example of Victorian Gothic Revival architecture that continues to serve its original purpose. While its current building dates from the late 1860s, the story of worship on this site stretches back further, more than 570 years, and traces the changing fortunes of the community from medieval village through industrial mill-town to the place we know and love today.
The Moorland Breeze, by Edwin Waugh
OF all the blithesome melody that wakes the warm heart’s thrill, give me the wind that whistles free across the moorland hill; When every blade upon the lea is dancing with delight, and every bush and flower and tree is singing in its flight.
Northwest Recipes: Chekyns in Cretene (Chickens in Cretoneé)
The notion that traditional English food is inherently bland and unseasoned is a stubborn modern myth, one largely born from the austerity and rationing of the mid-20th century, when wartime shortages and postwar frugality stripped many tables of flavour and variety.
In truth, English cookery, especially in the medieval and early modern periods, was, as we can see here, rich with seasoning, colour, and aromatic complexity.
Northern Shores: Thrift
Thrift is a member of the Plumbaginaceae (aka Leadwort) tribe, a small and tough family that specialises in harsh habitats, having evolved ‘chalk glands’ that excrete salts, allowing it to flourish in places where weaker plants fear to venture, like our storm-lashed, salt-sprayed coastlines.
Easter
By Gerard Manley Hopkins Break the box and shed the nard;Stop not now to count the cost;Hither bring pearl, opal, sard;Reck not what the poor have lost;Upon Christ throw all away:Know ye, this is Easter Day. Build His church and deck His shrine,empty though it be on earth;Ye have kept your choicest wine—Let it flowContinue reading “Easter”
Northwest Nature and History 