It is the early afternoon, and I have not stepped outside since returning from a decidedly chilly early morning cycle along the Rochdale Canal's towpath to take my son to nursery. The view from my study window while working had done nothing to reassure me that the day had marshalled any warmth, with the trees … Continue reading July, Cruttonstall →

I can reach the gate in eight minutes from my back door. It was the view from the gate that convinced us to to live here, a decade ago now. It is from here that I observe - attend to, regard, witness - this landscape.   Nestled in a confluence of cloughs, swaddled in valley … Continue reading Views from the Gate →

It is ten o’clock in the morning and Clare, my wife, and Bertie, my two and a half year old son, are walking along Kilnshaw Lane amongst the high pastures of the parish of Erringden. The misted air is cool, but the sun is issuing a promise to break through before we reach our destination, … Continue reading June, Erringden →

Landscapes are storied: they are the embodiment of the narratives of the human and non-human lives that have shaped them. Deliberations over how to manage ecosystems – for example, whether to preserve upland landscapes associated with sheep farming or to allow natural processes to ‘rewild’ them – should be oriented around the following question: given … Continue reading Storied Landscapes: The Narrative Approach to Conservation →

A fizzing Roman candle of a cherry tree in full blossom stands in the corner of the last garden that I pass before I enter Knott Wood. The sky is almost entirely cloudless apart from a gathering of cirro-stratus on the far horizon, and the tender oak and sycamore leaves – which have been propelled from … Continue reading May, Knott Wood →

It is half past seven in the evening as I open the back door, pull on my wellingtons and step out to work in the garden. I climb the steps up the terraces that ascend steeply from the back door up to the lawn, and go into the summerhouse to peruse the list of jobs … Continue reading April, Garden →

My wellington boots sink into the dark, wet earth in the bed of the gully as I heave on the handle of a log lifter, taking my share, with three other volunteers, of the weight of a ten-foot long, two-foot diameter section of Scots Pine trunk. We set it down, regroup, then lift again and … Continue reading Slowing the Flow →

I step off the 596 bus and into the sunshine at Slack Top, a small hamlet high on the crest of the ridge between two of the Upper Calder Valley’s deep and densely-wooded tributaries. To the south is the Colden Valley, but it is the valley to the north into which I will descend. The tributary it contains is the Hebden Water, which eventually … Continue reading March, Hardcastle Crags →

On Wednesday 20th March the Arts and Humanities Research Council-funded Land Lines project called for 150-word entries for their crowd-sourced Spring Nature Diary. Here is mine. My five-year-old son and I step out into the garden at the close of this first day of spring. ‘What can you hear of spring, my boy?’ ‘I can … Continue reading Spring Nature Diary →

I hail down the 595 bus to Crimsworth and am greeted by Anne – ‘Hello, my lovely’ – the friendliest of the generally very friendly drivers of the hilltop parish bus services around Hebden Bridge. She seems to know everyone; within a few yards of pulling away from the bus stop she has already stopped … Continue reading February, Limers Gate →