Celebrating our upland meadows

The Tees-Swale: Naturally Connected programme celebrated our upland meadows with a number of events.

The North Pennines AONB team enjoyed National Meadows Day on 1 July at Low Way Farm near Holwick, in Teesdale. Despite some changeable weather, over 100 people visited across the day for talks on botany, edible meadow plants, and meadow restoration techniques. There were displays of meadow plants, grown from hand-collected local seed which will be planted out into Teesdale meadows in the autumn, and machinery, including a 1950’s Allen Scythe and Ferguson tractor with bale grab attachment. Visitors also had another chance to see the photo exhibition ‘Herdship’ by Jo Coates, which documented the farming year on an Upper Teesdale farm.

Two enjoyable days were spent in Baldersdale, on 22 and 23 June, celebrating Hannah Hauxwells’s meadow and her extraordinary life. Michelle Hurley, landowner of Low Birk Farm, Hannah’s former farm, opened the doors to participants, who could also explore part of the Fitzhugh Library’s Hannah Hauxwell collection, which documents her life and times.

Michelle and Molly Jones, from the North Pennines AONB Partnership, led a walk to Hannah’s meadow and the Durham Wildlife Trust interpretation barn, looking at common meadow wildflowers and talking about meadow management practices that continue in many of our remaining upland hay meadows today.

Shelagh McKay Jones and Karen McDonnell performed the moving and uplifting ‘No Through Road’, a mix of spoken word, song and visual imagery illustrating Hannah’s life-enhancing and uplifting story. People who attended found the event “really caught the spirit and atmosphere of Hannah and her remarkable life, so special to experience in situ” and a “fantastic performance – very evocative of Hannah but also of the lost past and history of the Pennines Dales.”.

In the Yorkshire Dales, the celebration of National Meadows Day took place at Hazel Brow Farm in Swaledale, giving visitors of all ages a valuable opportunity to appreciate the area’s magnificent meadows. The Yorkshire Dales National Park led guided walks to learn about the grasses and flowers found in hay meadows. A hands-on lesson in bumblebee identification also proved popular and demonstrated the biodiversity of the meadows. An identification challenge with a twist encouraged participants to use all their senses to identify plants, alongside craft activities and a scything demonstration.