South Lakes on Screen

Rangers are fairly accustomed to strange requests, and we pride ourselves on our can-do attitude - but it still came as something of a shock when we were asked, ‘Can we do a high speed car crash in Tilberthwaite?’ This isn’t the only unusual one we’ve had over the past eighteen months – there’s also been ‘Can we take plaster casts of the quarry walls?’ ‘Can we build an enormous waterslide that chucks people into Tarn Hows?’ and ‘Can we zoom a huge drone above your woods?’ Contrary to what you might expect, we only said no to one of these requests (guess which one!), and they all came from one group of people – film-makers. With such a spectacular and characterful patch, it’s perhaps no surprise that lots of people making film and TV want to shoot here, and you can spot South Lakes in big budget feature films like Miss Potter and Snow White and the Huntsman, TV dramas like Safe House, the opening credits of Countryfile, and even a toilet paper advert!

A scene from Snow White and the Huntsman in Little Langdale - Universal Pictures

Paying our way

This summer we’re busy working with a film company making a new adaptation of Swallows and Amazons, another TV drama, and lots of smaller documentaries. Sometimes it’s almost a full time job. So why do we do it? The simple answer is that, as a charity, the money the film makers pay is absolutely essential to the National Trust, and allows us to do even more of our important conservation work. Every day film-makers spend using our land and buildings pays for woodland management, watercourse protection, visitor access routes, and all the other work we do to protect and look after South Lakes ‘forever, for everyone’. Filming is also a really important source of income for the Trust on a national scale – find out more here. These films also create great publicity - sometimes globally - and attract more visitors to experience our inspirational places.

Renee Zellweger at Yewtree Farm in Miss Potter - Phoenix Pictures

 Protecting our patch

We work closely with our tenant farmers and the films' location managers to ensure that nothing the film units do damages the land or buildings – sometimes this means placing restrictions on where they can work, or asking that they lay temporary tracks before driving vehicles across fields. For Swallows and Amazons, the crew will have to leave their trucks at the road and carry their gear by hand into woodlands, in order to protect and preserve these special places. We usually supervise filming to ensure all the conditions are being met, sometimes long into the night, and places are often left better than when filming began because of repairs to walls or improvements to farm infrastructure. 

And naturally, we’re not afraid to say no to those requests that we think are going to cause damage or degradation, or are otherwise inappropriate. So if you haven’t guessed already, the one we refused recently was the giant waterslide at Tarn Hows – although it did look like fun!

Happy Chinese New Year

Happy Chinese new year.

I know it’s a bit late but happy Chinese NewYear , it’s the year of the sheep lucky numbers 2 and 7 lucky colours brown , red and purple.

Of course every year is the year of the sheep in the Lake District , sheep have been an important part of the culture, economy and landscape here  for over a thousand years.

Herdwicks

Herdwick ewe and 'black' lambs

 One breed of sheep has a particularly strong connection to the area,  reportedly brought over here by the Norse Vikings , Herdwick sheep have been grazing on the Lake District Fells  ever since . They are a hardy breed , stocky, short legged and with thick wiry wool , at home in the mountains they live up there almost  year round at altitudes of up to 3000ft, without needing any supplementary feeding , their ‘ low maintenance’ has made them popular with generations of Cumbrian farmers.

Kendal Green

 The significance of sheep farming and Herdwicks in particular to this area  is hard to overstate not only have sheep been the backbone of almost every Lake District farm since the time of the Vikings,  providing a livelihood for generations of farmers and their families,  but  the trade in sheep , lamb, mutton and wool has helped to establish important market towns like Kendal, Hawkshead and Ulverston. The wool trade supported the wealth of the Abbeys at Furness and Fountains Abbey that owned land in the Lake District in the 15^th and 16^th centuries, and traded as far afield as Italy !  ‘Kendal Green’ was a hardwearing woollen cloth popular in medieval England and even mentioned by Shakespeare  in Henry iv ( part 1 )

Sheep farming and the wool trade has quite literally changed the face of the Lake District , old pack horse routes are now our main roads, we still  have narrow pack horse bridges over the becks and  the flagstone and drystone wall boundaries that we see today,  were built to keep sheep in the fields .

Herdwick sheep sale

The Herdwick sheep are unique in many ways ,  the ewes , because they are a mountain breed usually lamb later in the year when the weather is kinder and the grass has started growing . The higher fell farms will  start lambing in April when other lowland farms lamb in February . The purebred ewes usually have only one lamb , the  lambs are born black and  their fleece gets lighter and greyer as they get older. As I get older I find my fleece is  getting greyer as well !

Sheep or Goat ?

Herdwicks are definitely part sheep part goat, they are agile climbers , helpful when you have to graze on rocky crags. I have seen herdwicks climb high walls with ease and on one occasion saw a herdwick jump straight over a stock fence with barb wire on the top , just because there was the prospect of a better meal on the other side !

Much of our South Lakes property came from Beatrix Potter, the famous  writer and illustrator of childrens books what is less well known is that she was an active farmer,  Champion Herdwick sheep breeder and later in life the President of the Herdwick Sheep Breeders Association. Everything she turned her hand to,  she did to the very best of her ability and sheep breeding was no different . Why she had such a passion for sheep breeding and Herdwcks in particular we don’t really know , I personally think that part of the reason was the uncanny  resemblance of the Herdwick to her father Rupert , who was always the favourite of her two parents .

Beatrix's father Rupert is the one on the right !

Good n ..ewes  Bad n…ewes

So sheep have,  and will continue  to play an important role in the story of the Lake District , the National Trust even has a ‘ landlords flock ‘ of herdwicks to ensure that this happens,  but like  all things it is a question of balance .

 In recent decades the number of sheep on the fells, encouraged by  subsidieshas increased to a level that has had a negative impact . Sheep are not very selective in their grazing habits and will eat anything that is in front of them . Sweet fresh grass is preferred , but if that is not available they will eat other shrubs, flowers and young trees. Sheep in woodlands and gardens can wreak havoc in a short period of time , making it important that we maintain our woodland boundaries to a high standard and at some cost .

Heavily grazed grassland  on the fells and the valley sides  means that there can be a very short grass sward a lack of diversity in terms of wild flowers and insects and a tendency for soil erosion  to occur with tonnes of soil washed into our becks during heavy rain . Over a long period of time this means a massive loss of habitat and a loss of carbon stored in peat .

Sheep numbers in recent years  are starting to fall again but there is still much to do to minimise further damage and ensure more sustainable land management in the future , this will be  a real focus of our work in the Trust in the Lake District in the coming years.

Step back in time in Little Langdale

It’s hard to avoid the eerie feeling that you’re walking in the footsteps of our ancestors when you cross Slater’s Bridge in Little Langdale.  There’s not a road or modern building in sight – barely a building at all, in fact – and with the worn stone beneath your feet, it’s easy to become lost in time.  Anyone at any point in the four-hundred years since the bridge was built could have done the same thing; gazed around at the same fells, peered down into the same smooth clear water flowing swiftly beneath.  On a misty morning, it’s almost a surprise that a pack-horse doesn’t come clopping over the hill from Birk Howe Farm.

Slater's Bridge in the timeless landscape of Little Langdale.  Photo Amy Askew.

While Slater’s Bridge might be the most iconic old feature in Little Langdale, the whole valley is rich with the signs and scars of centuries of human use, not to mention five legally protected Scheduled Ancient Monuments (SAMs).  

Industrial heritage

Perhaps the most obvious features (although not scheduled) are the quarries which dominate Tilberthwaite and the south-east part of Little Langdale along with their enormous spoil heaps.  Slater’s Bridge is named on a sixteenth century map so it’s thought that quarrying was already taking place here then – this seems likely as the stone for most of the Lake District’s old slate buildings would have come from small local quarries.  The Victorian era brought a full-scale ‘slate boom’ to Coniston and the surrounding countryside as people travelled from all over the country to try their luck in companies of four or five people.  The use of compressed air drills to make holes for blasting enabled exploitation on a huge scale and the creation of giant pits like Cathedral Quarry, Hodge Close and Moss Rigg.  The development of quality bricks brought large-scale slate quarrying to an end, and nature has reclaimed many of the sites – the peaceful valley we enjoy today is a far cry from the Victorian scene of heavy industry with drills ringing, dynamite blasts and the rumble of heavy sleds of slate being dragged along.

Three companies of quarrymen in their shed.  Photo courtesy of Alastair Cameron.

The area is also known for copper mining, and the most remote of Little Langdale’s SAMs is the Greenburn copper mine, tucked between Wetherlam and Wetside Edge, a mile beyond where you have to leave even a 4x4.  The site is huge and lots of the infrastructure for processing the ore is in good enough condition to give an idea of the scale of the operation in this lonely place, while tunnels (now closed) disappear up to 700m into the hillside.  Stone huts, a cavernous pit for a waterwheel, leats for moving water, and the remnants of a tramway are some of the most dramatic evidence of mining from the 1690s through to the late 1800s.

Greenburn copper mine with the wheel pit visible at the front right, looking down Greenburn to Little Langdale.  Photo Ian Taylor, geograph.org.uk

Ancient hamlets

Where Greenburn meets the main valley we step back even further in time.  Two catchily-titled ‘mediaeval dispersed settlements’ are scheduled near Fell Foot Farm.  These date from sometime between 1066 and 1500 and consist of the foundations of buildings and a kiln that is likely to have been used for drying corn; they’re only visible now in the straight lines of giant boulders used for their foundations.  Lots of people in Cumbria lived in these ‘dispersed settlements’ during this period, with villages spread across entire valleys, a house or two in each hamlet, and their occupants sharing open common grazing on the surrounding land. 

Straight lines of giant foundation stones are all that's left of the hamlets.  All the smaller stone would have been scavenged to make more recent walls like the one towards the back of the picture.

The dry stone walls we see today were laid over this landscape during the following few hundred years and you can see the evidence of this ‘layering’ effect where some of them run across the foundations of these settlements.  The more intricate patterns of walls in the smaller fields in the valley bottom were built first as people started to manage larger flocks and herds more intensively and needed places to sort and store them; from 1690 a series of Enclosure Acts then allowed landowners to effectively privatise common land, eradicating the common rights.  The dead straight lengths of wall arcing miles over the fell tops date from this period as landlords marked their territory and controlled the grazing on it.

Please note that there is currently no public access to the mediaeval settlements.

This long, straight wall dividing Great Intake on Low Fell from the fell grazing on Wetherlam is likely to date from one of the Enclosure Acts.

 Vikings and Romans

Tucked away directly behind Fell Foot Farm is the site that speaks most to me – the Ting Moot (AKA Thing Mount/Mound – take your pick).  This terraced rectangle of earth, about the size of a tennis court, was a meeting place that is likely to have been built during the 'Viking' period between about 800 and 1066.  The Norse settlers had a very strong influence in the Lakes that we can see today in place names and words like beck (for stream, from the Norse 'bekkr') and fell (from 'fjall', Norse for mountain).  Courts would have been held at the Ting Moot as well as day to day meetings to administer the affairs of the area.  Little Langdale would have been chosen as this spot is central to the southern part of the region, with access possible over Wrynose Pass from the west and via Ambleside from the south and east; the passes here were a major trade route, and you can just about pick out the route of the Roman road (which the current road follows over the passes) in the field in front of the farm.  Standing on the road by the Ting Moot, with the Roman road in sight and Wrynose disappearing vertiginously behind you, it’s easy to see why this spot would have had such power. You can imagine the importance this route must have had when travelling the Lakes by foot or horse, with the valley opening up impressively below while Castle Howe rises sentinel-like directly above.

The Ting Moot tucked away behind Fell Foot Farm.  The terraced edges are very obvious when you visit.

Speaking of Castle Howe, this is the last of Little Langdale’s scheduled monuments, but unfortunately it seems likely that its history isn’t so compelling.  Although it was scheduled in 2001 as an Iron Age hill fort (based on research from the 1920s), current thinking is that it’s probably not a fort at all - although, as with all archaeology, we can never be certain.  The ditches to the west of the peak, which were originally interpreted as man-made defensive features, are now thought to be natural, and a look at the summit suggests that even if ancient people had created a defensive cordon here, there would be nowhere inside to make buildings or live due to the steep and rocky ground.  Although its human history is in dispute, Castle Howe is a fascinating piece of geology known as a dyke, formed by a plug of lava cooling in a vent from a giant volcano.  It's consequently made from harder rock than the surrounding area so while the rest of the landscape was eroded under the glaciers of successive Ice Ages, these lumps - like Tarnclose Crag and the Langdale Pikes to the north - stand ruggedly proud.     

Castle Howe (on the right) rises above Fell Foot Farm and the Ting Moot, with Greenburn and Wetherlam beyond.

There’s a huge amount more history in the valley that there’s not room to cover here – each of the farms is a fascinating tale in its own right, for instance – and this just demonstrates the rich story the landscape of the Lakes has to tell.  Little Langdale is considered one of the Lake District’s gems in terms of scenery, but scratching beneath the surface can add a whole new level of interest to your hike; the valley is the perfect place to start an archaeological investigation and walk in the footsteps of our ancestors.  

The rangers work hard with the National Trust regional archaeologist and building teams as well as the tenant farmers to ensure our Scheduled Ancient Monuments and the rest of the amazing history in our landscape is looked after as well as possible.  Sometimes this means excluding livestock or cutting vegetation on a monument to ensure it's not eroded, while other times we need to get the experts in to find out more information or carry out structural work.  Keep reading our blog to find out more about our varied work in the South Lakes.

Making space for nature in the South Lakes

Nature conservation in the Lakes - nothing furry in sight

What springs to mind when you think about ‘nature conservation’?  Maybe it’s something exotic but vague about tigers or snow leopards - or, closer to home, fuzzy ideas about counting dormice or monitoring butterflies.  The sad fact is that most of the rangers’ nature conservation work is much more prosaic. As a cynical ex-colleague put it: ‘We just cut down trees and build fences.’  There’s a lot of truth in that, but our work’s no less important for it!

For the past few weeks some of us have been hard at work on Hoathwaite Farm, near Coniston, creating a new wildlife corridor through the fields. Our starting point was an old, neglected hedgerow next to a beck. ‘Neglected’ in that it hadn’t been managed by laying for many years, so it had developed into a gappy line of trees. Although trees are important components of lots of ecosystems, the real value of hedgerows lies in the way they provide a continuous, sheltered ‘corridor’ through the landscape, which small mammals and invertebrates can use to move around and live in. The low, bushy growth also provides perfect nest sites for lots of birds.   

The gappy, neglected hedge before we started the project

To restore the hedgerow and maximise its value for wildlife, we felled the ‘overstood’ hedge trees in a process called coppicing – most broadleaved trees will spring back to life when you cut them down with lots of vigorous new stems, so they’ll form the perfect basis of a hedge in a couple of years.  Although it can look a little stark initially, and may seem counter-intuitive, cutting down trees and allowing them to coppice creates a constantly changing variety of different stages of growth throughout the landscape, ensuring that the right conditions are available for lots of different mammals, birds and other creatures – all of which require different things. We’ll also plant new hedge plants between the coppiced trees, to make sure it’s a continuous line, and we always leave the best couple of trees in the line upright as 'standards' to grow on into maturity, for the habitat they provide and to enhance the landscape.  

The old neglected hedge before...

...and after, with trees coppiced and two new fences.

 Fencing - not glamorous but great for wildlife

The only problem with coppicing and hedge-planting on a farm is that the young, soft growth of the trees makes an irresistible treat for sheep and cows.  Livestock will choose tree leaves and fresh twigs over grass, so we needed to fence the hedge-line to ensure that the trees grow successfully.  With its location on a small beck, fencing this hedge created a win-win situation, as fencing stock away from the beck is also great for the ecosystems in the stream, and for the water quality of the whole catchment.  Stopping the stock accessing the beck will reduce the amount of silt washing into the lake where they trample the banks (not to mention sheep poo!), and allow the natural vegetation of stream-sides (‘riparian edges’ in conservation terms) to grow unhindered.  In turn, the increased growth of vegetation slows the movement of water through the catchment, which can help alleviate flooding; and the wild, overgrown strip within the fence line becomes a whole new ecosystem, bustling with wildlife.  We should be able to see wildflowers and native shrub species growing, and butterflies and birds flitting along the beck-side - not to mention all the mice, shrews, beetles and bugs hidden away beneath the plants.

The beck protected within the fence line.

 A team effort

We spent a week coppicing trees (and producing about 8t of firewood), and then built two fences of nearly 200m in length, so we couldn’t have done it without the help of the South Lakes Volunteer Group, and our colleagues in the ranger team – particularly the upland path team, who are down off the fells for the winter and provide vital muscle and technical ability on jobs like this.  

Luke S, Sarah and Stuart hard at work.

  

We also worked closely with the tenant farmer, Sam; developing good relationships with the farmers so that we work in co-operation with them is one of the most important parts of the rangers’ job.  We need to work together to ensure they can run successful businesses while also providing the other benefits we all need or want from the land; like increased biodiversity, clean water, carbon storage, or a place to go for a revitalising walk. 

One of the other less glamorous sides of nature conservation is dealing with funding, and this work was made possible thanks to Sam’s ‘Higher Level Stewardship’ agreement with Natural England – government funding for farmers to help them achieve environmental benefits, and to ease the difficult balancing act between food production and all those other factors.  

The finished job with two 'standards' left in the line.

  

Behind the scenes

So while it might look like we’re just ‘cutting down trees and building fences’, the rangers are hard at work behind the scenes building relationships with farmers and our colleagues in other organisations, using our understanding of ecosystems and river catchments to plan effective projects, getting our heads round the grant schemes and sourcing funding, and organising the team and our great volunteers to ensure we get the work done.   

The hard graft’s done at Hoathwaite now – we’ve just got to plant the new hedge trees in a couple of weeks.  We’re all looking forward to next spring when we can head back and see the new plants bursting into leaf and the coppice stools sprouting fresh buds; and beyond that, when the hedge has grown back and the vegetation gets nice and high inside the fence, creating a brilliant new home for wildlife.  It might not be tigers, but its nature conservation Lake District style, and we love it!