Meadows and the Yorkshire Dales

click photo to enlarge
There are few areas of Britain with a landscape that isn't heavily modified by man or that still exhibits climax vegetation. And, whilst most people know that this is true of lowland, agricultural areas with their improved fields, hedges and obvious drainage, rather fewer appreciate that it is also the case in most upland regions too.

This is as true of the Yorkshire Dales as it is of the Lake District, Dartmoor or the North York Moors. On my recent visit to the Dales, standing above Langcliffe, overlooking the Ribble valley, the limestone above Stainforth and the distant peak of Ingleborough, I made a mental effort to imagine what the mountains, hills and valleys would look like without the past few thousand years of man's influence. Gone would be the drystone walls that characterise the limestone and gritstone areas. Gone too most of the closely cropped grass that sheep produce. The fields of the valley-sides and much of the moorland would have large areas of scrub and trees with only summits and exposed or wet areas clear. Valley bottoms would be thick with trees and streams and rivers wouldn't be confined to single channels by excavation, bank reinforcement and levees. The variety of plant and animal life would be much greater too. A few areas of the Dales - and other upland and lowland areas too - retain ancient characteristics. However, we shouldn't forget that the landscape that people admire, and which is protected by statute in the form of National Park status is, for the most part, man-made.

Some of those artificial features are, it has to be said, very attractive. Take meadows. These are entirely the product of farming, of the need to produce a grass crop that can be stored and used to feed animals during the winter months. When I lived in this area I enjoyed watching and occasionally helping with the hay harvest. I appreciated too the way that flowers - buttercups, vetch, clover, cowslips, scabious and more -  populated the hay meadows before the grass was cut. In the last quarter of the twentieth century silage supplemented and replaced hay on many farms. However, hay fields never disappeared entirely though their flowers frequently did as maximising the crop led to the application of nitrogen and other chemicals. Today I get the impression that with a greater awareness and the subsidies available for "environmental" farming, that hay has made something of a comeback. Not just hay, but deliberately planted wildflower meadows such as this one at Lower Winskill where farming and environmental education exist side-by-side.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 18.5mm (50mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/640
ISO: 125
Exposure Compensation:  -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Derelict farms and regional food

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The Guardian tells me that in a public poll to mark the start of British Food Fortnight the county of Lincolnshire was "revealed" (see my earlier post about the use of this word) to be "the UK's favourite food spot." The article went on to quote Rachel Green, farmer and chef, as saying that "the heritage food of this county really is the pig." To that I say, well, yes, up to a point.

Whilst pigs have long been a food animal of this eastern county, and are prominent today, other foodstuffs have also played a significant part in its agriculture. The importance of sheep in the medieval agriculture of Lincolnshire remains written across its villages and towns in the form of the county's magnificent medieval churches. And, though it was their wool that provided the source of most of the income that funded these buildings, the economy then, as now, used every part of an animal and mutton was a food that figured large in Lincolnshire. Today cereals and vegetables are undoubtedly the main agricultural produce of the county, especially on the fertile Fenlands, and are what it is best known for.

Let's not forget that cattle too were once more widespread in Lincolnshire than they are today, being raised for beef, milk and by-products such as hide. The many roads called "droves" remind us of this, as do some of the derelict farms. I photographed the abandoned buildings above on one recent sunlit evening, and what caught my eye was the raised platform by the barn doors on the left of the picture. It was surely the place where churns full of milk from the farm's herd were placed for daily collection. Today, in the milk producing areas of the country a tanker carries out this task, but when I was a child in the Yorkshire Dales such platforms were commonplace and in regular use. There are few - if any - milk herds on the Fens today, but on the Wolds and in other parts of Lincolnshire they are still to be found.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 40mm
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/60
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Improving the shot

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Photographers are always looking to improve their pictures. Progress is often measured over time and through many different subjects and approaches. But improvement can also be sought by returning to precisely the same subject time and again, aiming to make each image better than the previous one.

I have that sort of relationship with this seventeenth century house near St Andrew's church in Billingborough, Lincolnshire. I've photographed the view looking from the end of the house down the public footpath towards the church several times. Often this has coincided with a visit to the village to have a vehicle serviced, so I haven't planned the shots in any wider sense.

The first image I posted on the blog is OK, but nothing special. The second is an improvement, and I'm quite pleased with it. However, in the accompanying text I say that I should have caught the building when the wisteria was in full flower, and will perhaps do so next year. That was in 2009. I came upon the building recently, two years later, and the wisteria was showing well, so I took my photographs. However, I like the most recent image less than the second one. Why? Well, the light doesn't model the buildings as well - more shadows are needed. I thought this might be the case when I was taking the photographs, and so I looked for a couple of detail shots. This one, of the characteristically (for the seventeenth century) low front door was the best of the bunch. I liked the combination of colours, textures and those shadows.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Main Photo
Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 24mm
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/125
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On