Deep in the heart of the Forest of Bowland, standing in the corner of a tidy and well-kept village green that is reckoned to be the closest to the centre of the United Kingdom, stands an unassuming steel-and-glass telephone kiosk that holds a very special and unique place in British history.
Category Archives: #Lancashire
Unnatural Histories: The Haunting Hounds of the North
Great Britain is famously haunted by phantom black dogs, a great pack of monstrous mongrels seemingly spread to all four corners of the realm, but while East Anglia boasts its Black Shuck, Devon its Whisht Hounds, the Isle of Man the Moddey Dhoo and Wales its Cŵn Annwn; the Dogs of Annwn, Northwest England possesses an especially chaotic catalog of spectral canines.
Unnatural Histories: T’ hole in t’ Castle Keep
Up on top o’ yon rocky hill stands Clitheroe Castle, which I telt ye all about afore, it’s one o’ t’ smallest keeps in all England, an as’ stood theer for more nor eight hundred year, lookin’ out ower Ribble Valley. But on t’ side o’ that keep, just above t’ door, there’s a gurt big hole. Not a neat winder, mind thee, a proper jagged hole, big enough for a man to lean through, an’ it’s allus been theer as long as folk can remember.
Plecotus auritus, the Halloween Bat
Brown Long-eared bats emerge late, after full darkness, to hunt and their echolocation calls are very quiet to avoid being detected by prey (they are simetimes called “whispering bats”), so bat detectors only pick them up at close range (typically under 5m). They are very skilled at gleaning insects from foliage while hovering or flying slowly, as well as catching prey in flight.
Born in Preston to Design the World, the History of BDP
The Building Design Partnership, known simply as BDP, is one of Britain’s most significant design practices, and its long history is closely interwoven with that of my family’s.
Today it operates as an international firm of architects, engineers, urban designers, landscape architects, interior designers and related specialists, with its headquarters in Manchester and studios across Britain and overseas.
Unnatural Histories: The Spectre of Blacko
In t’ quiet little village o’ Blacko, tucked up agen t’ dark slopes o’ Pendle, t’ owd Cross Gaits Inn ’ad stood nigh on two ’undred year. Its low beams still smelled o’ woodsmoke an’ tobacco, an’ on certain neets t’ locals swore t’ past walked among ’em.
Violet Coral Fungus
(Excerpt) C. zollingeri is a characteristic member of the CHEGD fungal assemblage (Clavariaceae, Hygrocybes, Entolomataceae, Geoglossacaea and Dermoloma). These taxa are restricted to nutrient-poor, often mildly acidic grasslands that have remained largely unimproved for decades or sometimes centuries.
The Vikings still Speak
In Lancashire’s west where the salt winds roar, the Vikings left names on the sand and the shore. Formby the farmland that Forni did claim, Ainsdale the valley that carries Einulf’s name.
