We've always been a bit puzzled by the way SWT, after all a wildlife charity, is so keen to emphasise the domestication of the landscape when an innocent observer might expect the opposite. To us the overwhelming value of Blacka is the wilding process it has undergone over at least the last 70 years and the magic atmosphere this has produced with an increase in the thrilling encounters with wild animals and the delights of experiencing summer bird visitors that would not have been here when the place was a managed grouse moor.But this of course is the point that SWT want to make. Our vision is one they are not comfortable with. Its emphasis on the wild is not what they want to convey. They themselves earn their bread by managing the landscape, changing this and altering that, putting up fences cutting down trees and bringing in farm animals. So they wish to show, in their clumsy way, that managing the landscape is just what has always happened and therefore they are right to continue to interfere. That is why they desperately try to get members of the public to love their farm cattle but rarely if ever mention the wonderful and wild red deer which the public really do love without needing anyone to tell them.
Well sadly Blacka Blogger learned very little about neolithic heath dwellers fron the guided walk. I doubt they were even mentioned or any attempt made to capture the spirit of another age. The bare facts were given about the monastic grange but no imaginative detail to put flesh on the bones. And there is so little left to see despite reference being made to archaeological surveys. Two things we had gone along hoping to find out. Where was the boundary stone of the land once belonging to Beauchief Abbey? - answer not known. And what was the purpose of the pile of stones overlooking the Lee Syke? - again unknown.
Much time was spent on top of Bole Hill looking at bare earth where lead ore had prevented anything growing. And we took a look at the stone circle which may or may not be a stone circle or it may be the remains of a cairn. It would have been interesting to hear just how the people at that time lived and survived but nothing was forthcoming.
Blacka Blogger has many times felt inspired on Blacka Moor. Saturday was not one of those times.
3 comments:
The point you make about farm animals and the wild deer is so valid. I don't know a single person who visits Blacka who is in favour of the cattle, fences and gates. I'd encouraged a friend of a friend to visit Blacka this Saturday who lives well to the east of Rotherham and they were taken aback by the sight of 5 stags close to the stepping stones on their very first visit. Cattle they see on a daily basis but Britain's largest wildest animal was something they'd never seen before in situ. Surely SWT priorities must change to reflect and accommodate what the users of Blacka actually want to see?
The red deer are, of course, marvellous. Their presence on the Moor is brilliant, and many people (including SWT members and staff, and young people involved in our projects) have either been up to see them, have encountered them by surprise while up there for work or leisure, or have had great pleasure from hearing the experiences (and seeing the photos)of others who have.
The reason why they don't get quite the prominence in SWT communications that they might is pure and simply that their presence is (as far as I'm aware) universally seen as a good thing, and it is not contravercial in any sense. We do tell people that they're there, and mention them in articles and guides, on walks, etc.
You're right that perhaps we should celebrate them more extravagantly, but the deer will be there, and will provide great enjoyment to people who encounter them irrrespective of what any of us do, provided Blacka Moor is kept in fundamentally good heart.
SWT's management of the Moor has been, and continues to be, principally about keeping it in good heart, and the cattle are pure and simply one of several tools to assist in doing this.
I'm happy that the cows are playing a useful role in making Blacka Moor somewhere where not just you and I, but generations to come, will be able to encounter and marvel at red deer in this unique setting. (Without having to thrash strenuously through tangled undergrowth within a dense wood, which is what the Moor will become if left to its own devices.)
Come off it Nigel. This takes the biscuit.
“..don’t get quite the prominence”!!!
“..we do mention them in articles and guides” ?
Factual contortionism knows no bounds at SWT. When it was obvious that the fences and cattle were desperately unpopular with local people, the call went out to strain every sinew to make the case for the place having always been a site managed by people and minimising the wild atmosphere and wild mammals. Market the cattle was the call(no matter how crass and patronising). Get the kiddies to come and look at our cuddly Highland cattle just like on the telly.
What about the SWT article in the Totley Independent “Beautiful Beasts of Blacka Moor”- deer never mentioned yet at that time your cattle had never appeared and some of us were seeing magnificent stags almost daily.
And the article in Dore to Door saying that it was farming that made Blacka special – again the wildness and the wild deer carefully not mentioned. Annabelle trying to sound lyrical about the sound of the farmyard. Have you ever heard a stag bellow on Blacka?
And which guides have you mentioned them in? I only know one guide that you produced for Blacka Moor. It’s available at entrances in little green boxes. And guess what? It’s got pictures of cattle in it and doesn’t mention deer.
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