Capturing the Clwydian Range and Dee Valley One of Britain’S Most Beautiful Landscapes
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Capturing the Clwydian Range and Dee Valley One of Britain’s most beautiful landscapes Special issue We celebrate as AONB gets bigger Fancy a pint? Something’s brewing on Moel Famau Scorched earth Why our moorland is going up in smoke 10 of the best Days out that don’t cost a penny Plus: follow our food trail, push our buttons and join our day of the triffids 02 www.clwydianrangeanddeevalleyaonb.org.uk Welcome Room with a view Our Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty has page 4 just got a lot bigger. In November 2011, the protected landscape of the Clwydian Range AONB was extended to include much of the Dee Valley. This includes the towns of Corwen and A taste of heather Llangollen, major historical landmarks such page 6 as Pontcysyllte Aqueduct, Chirk Castle and Valle Crucis Abbey and stunning natural features including the Eglwyseg Escarpment, Horseshoe Pass and Esclusham Mountain. It adds a further 230 square kilometres to the 160 square kilometres of heather, Burning ambition hillforts and limestone cliffs that make up the Clwydian Range. It’s the first new page 8 area of land in Wales to be awarded AONB status for 26 years. This means that it’s officially recognised as one of the nation’s most important landscapes. But this isn’t just about walls, hedges and heather moorland. It’s about all the people who live and work here – the farmers, tourism operators 10 free days out and small businesses that help their communities to thrive. page 10 We don’t want to make it more difficult for these people. We want to help. And being in the newly titled Clwydian Range and Dee Valley AONB means access to funding and support that can make a real difference. In this special issue of our magazine, we want to welcome new partners such as Wrexham County Borough Council into the AONB. And we want to The missing link page 12 showcase some of the work we’re already doing in the north to give people in the south ideas of how we may be able to help. Working with graziers on heather management, for instance. Helping food producers to develop a food trail that’s bringing them new customers. Supporting local projects through the Sustainable Development Fund. Revenge on the triffids Over the next few months we’ll be talking to people in the Dee Valley, finding page 14 out what their priorities are and asking them to get involved in running the AONB. We hope to see you at one of our consultation events. Or you could just call in at our office in Y Capel, Llangollen for a chat. Carolyn Thomas Chair of the Clwydian Range and Dee Valley AONB Stroll your way to fitness page 16 Cover shot Castell Dinas Brân, Llangollen © Orange Imaging 03 Clwydian Range and Dee Valley AONB 04 www.clwydianrangeanddeevalleyaonb.org.uk Room with a view Inside the new audio-visual room State-of-the-art technology is bringing the at Loggerheads history of the Clwydian Range to life at the Country Park © Eye Imagery touch of a button. 05 Some people call it a self-guided interactive Talking to farmers at home and in local table with a dual projection system. But livestock markets, author Lorna Jenner staff at Loggerheads Country Park refer to collected many wonderful old photographs it simply as “the room with a view”. and stories from the times when milking, shearing, haymaking and harvesting were Housed in a little stone building next to the all done by hand. From top Shire stallion in restored water mill is an audio-visual 1920s Denbigh (courtesy experience that brings together everything Vincent Vaughn of Cilcain recalls tying Dilys Jones) / threshing in from the evocative cine films shot by WH string round the bottom of his trousers to the 1950s (courtesy Ken Crawford in the 1940s and 1950s to the stop rats running up his legs during Lewis) / demonstration of a latest flyover footage from the Heather and threshing. And he tells the tale of Robin Ferguson Tractor (courtesy Hillforts project. Hood VII, a stallion from the White Horse Bryn Jones). All from “100 pub, who once served 390 mares in a years of Farming in and Just wander in, seven days a week, use season – and was given a bottle of around the Clwydian Range”. the huge touch screen to navigate the film Guinness after each one. archive, hit the play button and watch your clip materialise on the wall in front of you. “I’ve tried to catch the essence of farming in the Clwydian Range and to document It’s so simple a child could do it. Even some of the changes that have taken technophobic adults will find it hard to go place over the past century,” says Lorna. wrong. And when you’re outside again you’ll see the world around you with fresh “I have been overwhelmed by the warm understanding. reception from the farming community. My only regret is that I had to be so selective “This is a small room that packs a big and so much good material has been punch,” says Carolyn Thomas, Chair of the missed out.” Clwydian Range and Dee Valley AONB. “It provides a window on the landscape and Fortunately, that’s not the end of the story. communities that make this area so special. There are plans for a major oral history project to build up a digital archive of “Visitors to Loggerheads will be able to farming in the area within living memory. get a real flavour of its biodiversity, its history and its culture. We’re getting people Schools and colleges will get involved in reconnected with the landscape and with memory gathering and a “museum in a their own heritage.” box” will tour venues showing photos and playing sound recordings. The AONB has The project has been funded by the Heather already backed the project and hopes are and Hillforts Landscape Partnership high that the Heritage Lottery Fund will Scheme and the Countryside Council for approve the bid. Wales’ Communities and Nature Project. It draws on just a small part of the AONB’s “100 Years of Farming rich archive – much of which underlines the importance of farming in conserving in and around the the special landscape of the Clwydian Clwydian Range” is Range and Dee Valley. available from the And while touch screens can be very exciting, Clwydian Range Centre sometimes there’s no substitute for curling up with a good book. “100 Years of at Loggerheads, Farming in and around the Clwydian all local bookshops and Range”, for example, published with help from the AONB’s Sustainable Development by mail order from Fund. www.moldbookshop.co.uk 06 www.clwydianrangeanddeevalleyaonb.org.uk A taste of heather In the world of food and drink, provenance is everything. No wonder the Clwydian Range is becoming a trusted brand. Phill Blanchard at Natural Beauty in a glass. A beer, in short, Hafod Brewery that tasted of heather. Phill was given a few armfuls of it from the slopes of Moel Famau and asked to work his magic. So he retreated to his new Hafod Brewery, just a stone’s throw from Loggerheads Country Park, and began to experiment. He thought about an infusion in the old Scottish ale style but decided that would have to wait for the three-week window Phill Blanchard is a resourceful man. And he likes when the heather was in flower. Then he a challenge. Not many people considering had a brainwave. He set fire to the heather. a career change would have decided to start their own brewery – and then built all the The idea was to produce a smoked beer – equipment themselves from scratch. a Welsh version of a German rauchbier. “I soon discovered,” says Phill ruefully, “how So problem-solving Phill was the perfect flammable heather is. It’s packed with oils. man for the job when Heather and Hillforts project officer Erin Robinson was looking I nearly lost my beard.” for someone to brew a beer with a difference. He rigged up a combustion chamber which allowed him to smoke both the A beer that captured all the appeal of the malted barley and the hops. He tried Clwydian Range Area of Outstanding different parts of the heather and found 07 that young leaves imparted a fresh, piney, fragrant quality to the beer. “I didn’t want it to be like drinking a pint of bonfire,” says Phill. “I wanted to produce a beer that would sell, a very subtle smoked beer that would appeal to a lot of people.” The result is Moel Famau Ale. A dark beer that conjures up the purple-clad hills of the Clwydian Range and even, with its smoky tang, the regular burning that’s needed to keep the heather moorland in tip-top shape. You might have thought it was a niche taste. Not a bit of it. Moel Famau Ale has Food miles become Hafod Brewery’s bestseller. A quality landscape produces quality food. That’s the logic behind the launch of the Clwydian Range Food Trail. Now Phill’s considering what other components of the local landscape he can It takes you through some of the most spectacular views in the employ. Gorse, for instance, which tastes Range, from Loggerheads through to Ruthin, Denbigh and beyond. of coconut. Or maybe Clwydian Range Along the way you’ll meet producers of delicious foods, all using honey, produced by 30 hives under the local ingredients wherever possible.