Warksburn, Northumberland: The river twists and loops through a landscape steeped in historyPerched on a tussocky slope, we eat our sandwiches in the winter sun, sit-mats sinking into damp moss among leaves of betony and St John's wort. Heather stems nudge against my knees. Young hawthorns make a spiky canopy above my head. Through backlit stalks of knapweed, a field lies way below us, held in a crook of the Warksburn. The far side of the river is bordered by a cliff seen through a lattice of riparian alders. Atop that is a sheep field and above that the wide Northumberland sky.The Warksburn gathers water from a series of sikes or rills - including Nameless Sike - in the south-east corner of Kielder Forest. It's a crimped blue line on the map like a pulled thread from a knitted jumper, twisting and looping through boggy ground between mist-caught ranks of conifers. Nearby, there are signs of the farming past in the shielings, stells and stack stands: shepherds' huts, circular sheepfolds and mounds for drying fodder for winter. Continue reading...
Country diary: going with the flow through the Debatable Lands
11. ledna 2021 6:45
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Celý článek: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jan/11/country-diary-going-with-the-flow-through-the-debatable-lands
Zdroj: The Guardian