New Walk: Bordley Moor Saturday 20th August

This is a circular walk lead by Kay Greenhalgh and taking in Lainger House – Bordley Hall – Bordley Town.

Meet 9.30 at Colvend or 10.00 at quarry car park at the end of Boss Moor Lane.

This walk is free to members and £3.00 for visitors.

UWFS supports Learning on the YDNP

On the hottest day of the year, UWFS was asked to support a school from Blackburn in learning about our environment. The Education Officer of the YDNP was helping the school to address the “Four Challenges” of the John Muir Award. Click here or here for more details.

John Muir was an influential naturalist in the USA and his writings lead to the creation of Yosemite National Park, the first National Park in the world, and others such as Grand Canyon National Park.

UWFS role was to explain the industrial archaeology of the moor, so that the 11/12yr olds could understand different uses of the land and how that usage has changed over the years. We tried to integrate the discussion with what the young people had learnt at school. The young people were also speaking to a Game Keeper, an environmentalist and experts from the YDNP to compare and contrast how preservation needs to sit side by side with modern usages of our Upland Commons.

To put things in context, we started by looking at the workhouse in Blackburn and what kind of life inmates had there. We pointed out that the mines were in use before the NHS or Unemployment benefit were created.  The young people were invited to look into the darkness of the Adit mine at Yarnbury to determine if they wanted to work down the mine or work on the surface.

Social History: The class volunteered one of their number to be the Boss. He chose some miners and some surface workers, resigning the rest to agricultural work or a trip to the Workhouse. As the miners chose tools, the Boss decided on how much he would rent them out for, immediately making the point that the Boss controlled everyone’s life. This discussion was done with the buildings in the background, to explain what each one was for.

Water Management: The young people found the reservoir at Yarnbury and learnt that the water was so valuable, it was brought two miles from the outmoor and had been used a number of times before arriving at Yarnbury Dressing Floor. This was contrasted with the bore holes that provide water to the buildings and with lack of rainfall, the class considered if these bore holes would be dry for the shooting parties.

Ground contamination: From school, the young people knew that lead was heavy and poisonous. They were asked what was growing on the dressing floors, two hundred years after the mines ceased operations. This caused a lot of head scratching and a class charge on to the dressing floors to touch and feel the waste products. Eventually one of the quieter girls realised the answer was “Nothing” thereby re-inforcing the poisonous property they learnt about at school. The class was left to think about if water from the 4th most lead polluted stream in Northern England was appropriate for the water based farming lower down Hebden Beck.

Mine Exploration: The class was asked what they could see in the landscape. One answer was fences. We explained that the fences were there to stop people walking over mine shafts, how deep the shafts are and why they are covered in rotting sleepers. We pointed out the fashion for going down derelict mines and how securing ropes was affecting the collars at the top of the mines. The class were asked to consider if putting a fence round a mine was like a big sign post saying “something of interest here”.

Wildlife conservation: The Game keeper had explained the use of the moor for Grouse Shooting and how the grouse are managed. We expanded this theme into how predators of grouse eggs and chicks are controlled and why these controls are interfered with. The young people were then told how these predators also eat Curlew and Lapwing eggs which are both endangered. Lastly we spoke about the difference in eating habits of Hen Harriers and Red Kites and killing of these birds is illegal. The young people were then asked to think about if the Gamekeeping was beneficial or detrimental to wildlife.

The YDNP Education officer fed back that, once the group had got back to the bunk barn, there were fierce discussion into the night about conflicting uses of our moorland common. This discussion is the goal of the John Muir Award.