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: #Yorkshire
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.
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.
Hen Harriers, Fates and Fortunes, Part Two
In Part One of this continuing series we left the Hen Harrier in the recent past, with the mixed fortunes of 2022 to 2024: record fledging years giving way to weather-hit productivity, satellite tags failing silent, and the brood-management trial paused for review.
Ovinophobia, the Rise of the Anti-Sheep Movement
(Excerpt) In the early 2010s, a series of sharp critiques of British upland sheep farming emerged from environmental circles and gradually hardened into a sustained campaign. What began as polemical writing about ecological damage evolved into calls for the removal of sheep from the hills. This was framed as essential for nature recovery, flood prevention and rewilding, among other things.
Small-leaved Lime, Relict of the Ancient Wildwood
(Excerpt) The northern limit of native T. cordata in Britain lies in the English Lake District at approximately 54°30′N, with the majority of sites within about 25km of the Morecambe Bay coast. Populations are concentrated on the wooded hills from Warton to Ulverston and extend inland up the valleys of the Lune, Kent, and Duddon, with the most northerly localities in Borrowdale and beside Ullswater.
The Runaway Turntable
(Excerpt) It was a wild afternoon high on the Settle-Carlisle line, the wind came howling down from Wild Boar Fell and across the exposed plateau at Garsdale (still known to older hands as Hawes Junction). It was the sort of day when the moors seemed determined to remind every living thing there who really owned the place.
The Duties of a Gamekeeper; High Summer on the Moors
(Excerpt) As July draws to a close across the moors our upland gamekeepers find themselves in the thick of one of their busiest and most critical periods. With The Glorious Twelfth fast approaching their work shifts from protecting nesting birds to assessing populations and preparing for what can be a time of make-or-break for the upland shoot.
