Cumbria Naturally
  • Home
  • Blog
  • My Books
    • Cumbrian Contrasts
    • A Lakeland Experience >
      • Introduction
      • Derwent
      • Langdale
      • Ullswater
      • Kentdale
    • About Scout Scar
    • Atlantic Odyssey
  • Other Writing
    • What Larks!
    • Further - Explore Shetland
    • Autumn Migration
    • Rydal and Nab Scar
    • Perspectives
    • The River Kent
    • Wings
  • Gallery
  • Contact

Haweswater and Swindale: reminiscence

14/7/2016

1 Comment

 
PictureRinglet beside Swindale Beck, 14 July 2016
She gathered   seed-heads of  cotton grass to make  shirts for her  seven brothers,  seven shirts to free her swan- brothers from enchantment, silken shirts to break the spell. *
 Plumes of hare’s-tail cotton grass  catch the light over  Hare Shaw where the moors are rich in flowers of cross-leaved heath, bell heather and  green-budding ling.  To the west, the lost village of Mardale is a ghostly presence,  resurrected from Haweswater in a summer of drought.   The Old Corpse Road rises over  Mardale Common where once the villagers grazed their flocks.  The dead were borne over the moor  to  Swindale Head and on to Shap to be buried.  


 Memories coalesce and  colour the day.  Flowers of water lobelia in Small Water. A family of ring ouzel in the rocks above the corrie-lake of Blea Water and  peregrine above Riggindale Crags. Gold-ringed dragonflies on a sultry day, coupled like loops of  bootlace  where the beck debouches into Haweswater.   Glimpses of Eden.
Hobgrumble Gill is a secret  place, a deep cleft in the crags, water-falls  hidden by trees and high-summer bracken.  Down from Selside,  crossing the source of Hobgrumble Gill and down beside Force Falls and over a new bridge at Simon Stone  to the fell-foot  where water trickles and seeps through boggy ground and flowers come thick and fast.  Bog asphodel  whose yellow stars soon  fade,  whose last- summer’s seed-heads  linger long , Narthecium ossifragum,  like tiny bones.   Pink bells of cross-leaved heath, pierced by pollinators.  Tiny white flowers of  rosy sun-dew lurking carnivorous for insect prey.  Gold-ringed dragonfly,  wands of yellow and black.
The hobs of Hobgrumble Gill have seen it all, the coffin- bearers coming  off the high-summer moor, Atlantic salmon spawning, brown trout, and flower-rich meadows . They might well puzzle over today’s  JCBs working all along Swindale Beck, at the 21st century technology invoked to return this tributary of River  Eden to its former glory, to restore the beck’s slow meandering course through the dale, with all the benefits of flood prevention, water quality, with wildflowers and insects in the meadows.
Swindale Beck restored  to nature.  'Could have told you so,' the hobs chunter.  What do they make of fish ladders to help the salmon reach their spawning grounds?  A new meandering course for old, to slow the beck down on stormy days when cascades bring rock tumbling down from on high. New for old meadows rich in flowers, all along Swindale Beck.  Back to Nature, in search of Eden, in search of what is lost.

Haweswater Nature Reserve, declares a new version of the OS map.  Up on the moors there is tree planting: slips of hawthorn, hazel, birch and guelder rose.

Footnote:

*Grimm and Andersen fairy tale. Cotton grass gathered as thread to sew shirts occurs as a motif in a fairy tale collected by the brothers Grimm. Known variously as The Seven Princes, The Six Swans,  The Wild Swans.

The  RSPB gives a succinct appraisal of conservation work at Haweswater Nature Reserve and Swindale Beck.  Sites about the Eden catchment give management plans for this large river system.

Countryfile.  17 July 2016  on meadows and Coronation Meadows
20 July 2016. Farming Today: Coronation Meadows and Hills to Levels- flood control measures

28 September 2016. Publication of a report  from the Green Alliance and National Trust. With Farming Today visiting Swindale.

Thanks to Vic and Eleanor Quaglieni for another splendid walk in home territory

1 Comment
An orienteer
22/7/2016 06:32:04 pm

Intriguing modern fairytales weaved from a plethora of colourful wildlife sightings

Reply

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Picture

    Author

    Jan Wiltshire is a nature writer living in Cumbria. She also explores islands and coast and the wildlife experience. (See Home and My Books.)

    Archives

    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    January 2015
    November 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    September 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    November 2010
    August 2010
    July 2010
    April 2010
    January 2010
    November 2009
    January 2009
    January 2004

    Categories

    All
    A Local Patch
    Birdlife
    Butterflies And Moths
    Flowers
    Locations
    Views
    Walks
    Weather
    WIldlife

    RSS Feed

Website
Home
Blog
Gallery
Contact



​Cookie Policy
My Books
  • Intro - My books
  • ​Cumbrian Contrasts
  • A Lakeland Experience
  • About Scout Scar
  • Atlantic Odyssey
    ​
Other Writing
  • Intro - Other Writing
  • What Larks!
  • Further - Explore Shetland
  • Autumn Migration
  • Rydal and Nab Scar
  • Perspectives
  • The River Kent
  • Wings
Jan Wiltshire - Cumbria Naturally
© Jan Wiltshire 2019 All rights reserved
Website by Treble3