Eyam Moor in Derbyshire has a new owner: an anonymous benefactor has presented the moorland to the Derbyshire Wildlife Trust to be a haven for biodiversity, according to a Country Diary column in the Guardian.
The change of ownership is described as worth celebrating, with the writer reflecting on a recent visit to the moor, a place they treasure greatly. After recent rainfall, the dry, dusty soil on the path had reverted to reassuring gloop, and the writer was thrilled to step cautiously round a puddle.
A landscape of deep history
During the visit, a buzzard wheeled overhead, and a small gang of swallows skimmed across heather whose purple intensity was already fading. To the west, a kestrel was quartering the slopes of Wet Withens.
The moor steepens as it drops towards Highlow Brook, where a bench sits beside a flat space used for a bronze age barrow. Next to it is a henge with a circle of small stones, the most prominent of which was long ago dubbed “the chair”. A raptor, perhaps the kestrel nearby, had recently been dismantling something small and furry on top of the chair.
A view of harmony
The view from the barrow is among the best the writer knows, with the spire of St Michael’s in Hathersage visible in the distance, nestling in the crook of the hills opposite, ridgelines intersecting like arms round shoulders.
The barrow itself is a jumble of stones, torn apart in the mid-18th century when the nearby turnpike was built and workmen came looking for material. This was decades before the commons were enclosed, in this case for the Duke of Devonshire, who later in the 19th century turned the moor into a grouse moor.
A new story for the moor
These strands of deep history show how varied uplands have been, from sacred space, to sheepwalk, to elite playground. Now, with the gift to the Derbyshire Wildlife Trust, the moor has a new story as a haven for biodiversity, described as a gleam of light in a troubled sky.
