Ringlet 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.
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.
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
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
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