I thought I ought to go and have a quick look.
As you drive up the road, northwest, from the Pack Horse Inn you are on the route of the Pennine Way. On your left there is this sight…
It doesn’t look very pretty does it? I looked over it for a while and didn’t see any birds. Difficult to believe that this is part of the South Pennine Moors SSSI and South Pennine Moors Special Area of Conservation – but maybe I just caught it on a bad day. Although the sun was shining (though it doesn’t look like it from the photograph).
I drove a bit further up the road and turned the car round. I wonder where this? On the other side of the road I saw this sign.
I have no idea where the ownership boundaries lie in this part of the world. It was interesting to see the very edge of Walshaw Moor for the first, but probably not the last, time.
This blog has written about Walshaw Moor once or twice – in fact at least 45 times (Wuthering Moors 45, Wuthering Moors 40, Wuthering Moors 35 and so on).
[registration_form]
“It doesn’t look very pretty does it …… and ( I ) didn’t see any birds” says Mark “
Living in the “Peak Park” at 1,500 feet I have to say that I still haven’t seen a ‘lapwing’ in my area!
What we do have though is a massive ‘investment’ by the Nation in badger fencing (installed by the Authoriies ??) to protect lapwing eggs from predation by the protected species badger.
As to your photograph – the wall looks sound enough with a protecting sheep wire fence
The best bits in the picture? Green grass and grazing sheep!
And no bloody people!
I have posted my views in the past on others sites relating to this estate. After over 50 years walking over theses moors I now find the whole area ; don’t know how to describe it- tacky, sterile, sordid, ?. I now drive a little further and mostly walk over the hills above the Todmorden valley. A bit on the bleak side but at least unsullied by Mr. B and his men. I did walk up the track on the photograph and then down into the Craggs recently. Heard a couple of cuckoos; could have been the same one but don’t think so. There certainly seems to be a shortage of bird life. I found the experience as depressing as I did on my last walk in the area.
Incidently, there is a new keeper on the staff, a young man who seems a thoroughly unsavoury piece of work. Whatever else, I cannot say that about all the other keepers I have encountered over the years here.
Mr B is undertaking major re-contouring of the landscape around his property at Sawley, Lancs. Yesterday I counted four diggers, several large items of earth-moving plant and other associated machines. Whatever else, he must certainly be a successful business man.