Country diary: a change in the ecological weather

High Fields, Stoney Middleton, Derbyshire: These exhausted hay meadows, now owned by the National Trust, are on the way to being restoredClimbing up from the top of Coombs Dale, I turn up a rough road known as Black Harry Lane. I don't know the origins of the name; my hunch would be that it's related to the region's distant lead-mining past. There was an 18th-century highwayman called Black Harry, who was gibbeted nearby, but he was named after the packhorse road, not the other way round.On a warm summer's evening, there is nothing malevolent about the place. The verges are thick with flowers: meadow crane's-bill, a flower that when I notice it reminds me I'm home, its commonplace purple threaded with the subtler, paler scabious. The track itself has needed heavy repairs in recent years, thanks to off-road enthusiasts, whose local reputation, like that of highwaymen, is mixed. Continue reading...