#shropshire

[vintagecamping]

Camping beside an idyllic stream in the village of Llanfair Waterdine.

Shropshire, England

1987

[reasonsforhope]

"In west England, a series of hills cloaked in heather and wildflowers are the target of a national restoration project that is already seeing success.

Similar to the story GNN reported on last week about the rewilding along the south coast and South Downs National Park, Sussex, volunteers are seeding old hay fields with native wildflowers and replanting traditional hedgerows to ensure wildlife can move freely through the region.

The region is called the Shropshire Hills, which by British law is designated an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and is managed and controlled so this beauty can endure. But while the area is indeed beautiful, the valley between the sections of hills known as Long Mynd and Stiperstones has for decades been under heavy hay cultivation, with farmers plowing up meadows and planting fast-growing commodity grasses.

As part of a project by the UK’s National Trust called Stepping Stones, volunteers have been working with landowners and local councils to turn some of these meadows back over to the wildlife, creating corridors of habitat to allow species like the bilberry bumblebee, pine marten, and curlews to move freely from hilltop to valley floor and back to hilltop.

Charlie Bell, project manager for Stepping Stones, told the BBC that the project is one part of an overall mission that aims to restore 97% of meadows that have been lost in the UK over the last 100 years.

“Many old meadows have been plowed up and re-seeded with more productive mixes of grasses,” she told the national broadcaster. “Fertilizers are often added to increase the growth of these dominant productive grasses, at the expense of finer grass species and wildflowers.”

Jinlye Meadows, on the Long Mynd side of the valley, is now thriving with native wildflower species like mountain pansy, and volunteers have recorded the area is thriving with bilberry bumblebees which are rare and in decline.

In particular, the meadows were covered last year in yellow rattle, also known as the “meadowmaker,” a key part of Ms. Bell’s strategy for restoring meadows. This native species attaches itself to the roots of grasses, slowing, but not sabotaging, their growth. This allows not only the flower to grow, but space for all manner of other flowers to grow as the grasses’ growth is [slowed down]."

-Article via Good News Network, July 11, 2024. Video via NT Midlands, June 19, 2023.

[petitworld]

Shropshire, England by Susan Rushton

[alexmurison]

The sweetest young wild pony high up on the Long Mynd just before all the rain and sleet came howling through. Shropshire, UK

[peacefulandcozy]

Instagram credit: polly.florence

[benshanti]

First go at growing a sunflower ☀️🙂

[pedroam-bang]

Atonement (2007)

[runawayandhide]

[pangeen]

“ Honey Bees “ // Pete Burford

[victusinveritas]

Woman living near Ironbridge Power Station eating by candlelight during power cuts in 1972 by David Bagnall.

[thesilicontribesman]

Figurine of the Goddess Diana, probably from a Domestic Shrine (Lararium), Wroxeter Roman City, Wroxeter, Shrewsbury, Shropshire

[unteriors]

Coxall Baptist Church, Bucknell (Shropshire).

[connorphilpphotography]

Such a beautiful little village, Ironbridge.

[105nt]

Shropshire today, the sloping roofs of the old Ditherington School, now a community centre, maybe?

[alexmurison]

Had the sweetest weekend up in the Shropshire hills hanging out with the wild ponies, watching ravens tumbling and twisting in the sky and heard the first skylark of the year.