I’ve started to investigate the Humberhead Levels, the flat lands that stretch north from Retford most of the way to York. It’s an area I’d never explored before, despite growing up on its borders. If I’d thought about it, it was to think there was nothing there. It’s not exactly a remote location and is criss-crossed by motorways and railways but it still feels like the middle of nowhere. It’s not pretty either. There are no contours on the OS maps except where island villages rise slightly above the flats. Perhaps that I am starting to appreciate flat lands is a sign I’m getting older.
I first heard the name Humberhead Levels in Catherine Caufield’s little book Thorne Moors, beautifully and starkly illustrated with photos by Fay Godwin, about the battle to save Thorne and Hatfield Moors in the 1980s and early 1990s when they were being destroyed by peat extraction on an industrial scale. They are raised bogs, great lenses of water held above the surrounding land in peat formed from millenia’s worth of bog mosses and cotton sedge. Bog in lowland England is a rare habitat, especially species-rich raised bogs like these. There's lots more about it at http://www.thmcf.org/. Thorne and Hatfield Moors became part of the Humberhead Peatlands National Nature Reserve in 1995 but, incredibly, peat extraction didn’t stop until 2002. Now it has, English Nature and its partners are trying to get them back as healthy raised bogs. They’re getting there but there’s a long way to go. It was a shock to see bare peat stretching to the horizon.
The Humberhead Levels were splashy, isolated and independent until the Dutch engineer Cornelius Vermuyden started his massive drainage works in the seventeenth century. The locals rioted frequently after the drainage started, not surprising since it led to villages flooding, and the farming of land they’d previously hunted and fished was an imposition by foreigners and big landowners. It was also a place of religious independence. Charles and John Wesley, founders of Methodism, came from the island village of Epworth and several of the Pilgrim Fathers came from villages to the north of Retford. And Robin Hood was said to hunt on Hatfield Chase: an odd sort of place that gave birth to outlaws and Puritans. We ended our day at Crowle, where we passed the time of day with a man pushing an old bike and balancing a bag of wood gathered from the moors. It was a perfect conversation of its sort. He thought through every word he said, and every one was a gem. Maybe there was something about the place that gave time and space for thinking for yourself.
I first heard the name Humberhead Levels in Catherine Caufield’s little book Thorne Moors, beautifully and starkly illustrated with photos by Fay Godwin, about the battle to save Thorne and Hatfield Moors in the 1980s and early 1990s when they were being destroyed by peat extraction on an industrial scale. They are raised bogs, great lenses of water held above the surrounding land in peat formed from millenia’s worth of bog mosses and cotton sedge. Bog in lowland England is a rare habitat, especially species-rich raised bogs like these. There's lots more about it at http://www.thmcf.org/. Thorne and Hatfield Moors became part of the Humberhead Peatlands National Nature Reserve in 1995 but, incredibly, peat extraction didn’t stop until 2002. Now it has, English Nature and its partners are trying to get them back as healthy raised bogs. They’re getting there but there’s a long way to go. It was a shock to see bare peat stretching to the horizon.
The Humberhead Levels were splashy, isolated and independent until the Dutch engineer Cornelius Vermuyden started his massive drainage works in the seventeenth century. The locals rioted frequently after the drainage started, not surprising since it led to villages flooding, and the farming of land they’d previously hunted and fished was an imposition by foreigners and big landowners. It was also a place of religious independence. Charles and John Wesley, founders of Methodism, came from the island village of Epworth and several of the Pilgrim Fathers came from villages to the north of Retford. And Robin Hood was said to hunt on Hatfield Chase: an odd sort of place that gave birth to outlaws and Puritans. We ended our day at Crowle, where we passed the time of day with a man pushing an old bike and balancing a bag of wood gathered from the moors. It was a perfect conversation of its sort. He thought through every word he said, and every one was a gem. Maybe there was something about the place that gave time and space for thinking for yourself.
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