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, Oakcrest →

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 →