Hebden Bridge lies in the Pennines, "the backbone of England" a band of hills running down from the Scottish border down to Derbyshire and dividing the north west from the north east. The Pennine Way footpath zigzags its way from south to north.. The millstone grit dome is a moorland plateau and in the Hebden Bridge area it is dissected by steep sided valleys, of the Calder and its tributaries.
With a catchment stretching from Blacktone Edge reservoir at.. m with views down to Rochdale and the Lancashire cities to the West Manchester and Liverpool ,the Calder drains travels twice the distance to the east, joining the River Aire east of Leeds to form the Ouse and then Humber..
The geology is all gritstone/sandstone which support acid loving lichens; Oak trees grow well on the acid soils of steep valley sides
I arrive on the Monday evening having driven across the moorland from Keighley.: along roads with with dry stone walls and sometimes footpaths, and and villages with 20mph speed limits, finally down to Hebden Bridge and up the VERY steep streets to the IOU hostel. This is next to the Birchcliffe Centre The Birchclffe centre I later discover was a Baptist chapel opened about 1900 (the third on that site) but is now modernised and housesvarious offices and the digital records centre. Our hostel next to it used to be the Baptist Schoolroom (As big as a big chapel itself) and now converted into a well lit bright vegetarian Hostel by an Art-Theatre foundation (IOU). We have hired sole use of the place for four nights.
I enter to discover Graham the Field Meeting leader and the group holding an welcoming session. We all introduce ourselves. Then we have a fantastic supper with food brought by Eluned, Pete and Ann.
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| Roast homegrown squash by Ann |
On the Tuesday morning I decide to record five lichens before breakfast - Can you guess what they are?
If you are a lichenologist have a guess before reading further.
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I actually find 8 species and Pete who is collecting records for the group for the whole week to add to the BLS data base correctly guessed the first four.
On Hawthorn:
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| Must get one of the others to help me identify this fluffy soft Lepraria |
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| Lepraria sens lat |
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| View of Hostel |
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| To remind me that I need to go back to this Caloplaca type species |
Cragg Vale was the location of the Cragg Vale Coiners, a group of people who chipped the edges of gold coins then released the coins into circulation again.
We park our cars just south of Myrthylmroyd and set of on a walk up to YWT reserve Broadhead Clough
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| Acorns Acorns everywhere. It has been a fantastic year for acorsn (as for many other fruit. A farmer in Bal, North Wales has recently lost 35 sheep due to acorn poisoning, so farmers here have been warned to take care. |
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| Sedge - will write more later. |
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| Looking at Baeomyces rufus |
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| Baeomyces rufus |
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| Lunch |
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| Fly agaric |
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| Looking at the fly agaric at the exit to the reserve at the top. |
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| View down to Cragg Vale - wall across moorland |
Here is a wooden sign on the exposed moor.
. I expect over time more lichens will get established on it.
On the way home my phone battery runs out. I cannot find the way back to the hostel - I pass a long long long queue of people waiting at the cinema. It is for the launch of a TV show Riot Women. I go one way and realise it is wrong and come back agian - past the same queue - and another way and back agin past this queue - then tow more times - but in the centre of town the street isn narrow there is no-where to stop and so no-one to ask. Eventually I get off the main street, vind myself in George Square where there is a public map board.. and from ther I can see just across the street the correct way home . Up Commercial street and first left.
We come home have supper sort our specimens (and in my case "Do emails" )
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