Spring Newsletter 2008

Spring conference in Leeds, Saturday April 5th 9.30am – 4.30pm ’s Green and Healthy Land? Connecting urban and rural greenspace [In collaboration with the School of Geography, University of Leeds, and the Royal Geographical Society] Keynote speaker: Professor Sir John Lawton: Urban green space and human health: the view of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution Other speakers: Professor Joseph Holden and colleagues: Sustainable uplands for sustainable lowlands Simon Warwick: A new future for Yorkshire’s wetland past? Dr Alan Simson: Trees in the post-industrial landscape and the writing of the ‘Third Poetry’ Chris Marshall: Greening the green belt Professor Andy Smith: Does the environment determine health enhancing physical activity or is it all in the genes? Dr Rachael Unsworth: Liveable cities. There will also be poster displays and books for sale. Cost: £25.00 per person, including buffet lunch.

Sunday April 6th, 2.00- 5.00pm. Fieldtrip to the Lower Aire Valley (details to be announced at the conference). To book your place, please complete the enclosed booking form. PLACE AGM and members’ day, Saturday 10th May 2008 This year’s AGM will be held at Wombleton, as part of a day of activities based on the area of the . All members and their guests are welcome to attend and there is no charge for this event. Meet at 10.00am in Wombleton village hall (SE 689839). Turn east in the village by The Plough inn and follow Page Lane to find the village hall (an old school) on the right. Parking is possible outside the hall and on one side only of Flatts Lane. Please let us know if you are coming by completing the attached booking form.

The AGM will take place at 11.30am in The day will include: Wombleton village hall. Guests are welcome to attend but only PLACE members • a talk by Peter Hills on the descent of the Manor of (Friends of PLACE) may vote. Nunnington The PLACE Annual Report and Accounts • a tour of Nunnington church and walk through the will be circulated to members in the next village, led by Peter Hills, with contributions on building few weeks, together with an agenda for stones in Nunnington by Richard Myerscough the meeting. • a tour of Nunnington Hall gardens Three trustees stand down by rotation and • a walk/drive from Caulkleys Bank to wish to offer themselves for re-election: church. Barbara Hickman, Michael Hopkinson and David Maughan Brown. Morning coffee will be provided in Wombleton village hall but people should make their own arrangements for If anyone else wishes to stand for election to lunch and tea. Bar meals are available at the Royal Oak the PLACE Board, please write to the PLACE and there is a café in Nunnington village. There are also Office for a nomination form. All nominations lunch and tea facilities in Nunnington Hall. Entry to the must be received by noon on Friday 11th April Hall and gardens is free to National Trust members. 2008. Page 2

Autumn conference 2008: Mists and Mellow Fruitfulness This will be held in Ampleforth on Saturday 4th October, in collaboration with the Farming & Wildlife Advisory Group. The morning will consist of presentations in Ampleforth village hall, on topics including: • the history and cultural interest of orchards • orchards today and tomorrow • orchard wildlife • case studies of specific sites. In the afternoon, we shall walk to Ampleforth College for a tour of the orchard there. We also hope to visit a vineyard at Oswaldkirk. Cost: £25.00 per head, including lunch (local produce). To book your place, please complete the booking form enclosed with this newsletter.

PLACE Short Courses

City and Spectacle: the Mystery Bird Ecology and Conservation Plays as a cultural treasure Autumn 2008. To be led by local This course, led by Dr Robert Wright and other ornithologist, Dave Tate. members of Ars Ludendi, will take place in St Olave’s Church Hall, Marygate, York, from 7.00 to Topics will include: 9.00pm on Thursday evenings from 27th March to 1st May. • What is a bird? Week 1 – Performing the plays today • Migration Week 2 – The historical context • Habitat assemblages Week 3 – The nature of religious belief and practice • Population dynamics Week 4 – Music and censorship • Conservation Week 5 – Some thoughts on the Passion • Climate change. Week 6 – People and place If you are interested in attending this course, please indicate this on the booking form enclosed. The group will also have a tour of medieval York, including part of the route of the Mystery Plays, on a date to be arranged. For further details or to sign up for The course costs £40.00 per head. To join the PLACE short courses, ring Margaret course, please contact the PLACE Office straight Atherden on 01904 766291 or e-mail: away. [email protected]

Report on short course, Gardening for Wildlife in a Changing Climate. This course was led by Barbara Hickman and Margaret Atherden and took place in January and February 2008. It included lecture and discussion sessions, practical work with soils, a tour of the grounds at York St John University, and a garden quiz in Margaret’s garden in Huntington (left).

We are now planning a day school to follow on from this course, in spring 2009. Further details in later newsletters! Page 3

New PLACE Publications

Yorkshire Landscapes Past and Future

Edited by Margaret Atherden and Tim Milsom. This volume stems from the PLACE conference held in October 2004 in collaboration with the Society for Landscape Studies. There are chapters by Robin Butlin, George Peterken, Stephen Moorhouse, Andy Howard, Robert Wright, Ian Dormor, Jane Wheeler and Wishart Mitchell et al. The volume is dedicated to the memory of Mary Higham. It costs £14.99 + £1.50 P & P. ‘Letters from America’: Nineteenth Century Emigrants Writing Home to Yorkshire By Michael F. Hopkinson This PLACE occasional paper makes fascinating reading for anyone interested in family history or how Yorkshire folk took to life in the New World. It costs £1.50 + £1.50 P & P.

Coming soon: ‘Digging for Brass’: the impact of the Extractive Industries on the Yorkshire landscape. Edited by George Sheeran and Carl Heron. To order any PLACE publications, please use Great Estates of Yorkshire. Edited by Veronica the booking/order form enclosed with this Wallace. newsletter. You can also visit our bookstall at the April conference or at the ‘Secret Woods’ event in Raincliffe Woods, near Scarborough, on Monday 5th May. Fieldtrips and visits

Fieldtrip to prehistoric Swaledale Sunday 27th July Meet in Reeth marketplace at 11.00am for a fieldtrip led by local archaeologist, Tim Laurie. During a (mostly downhill) walk, we shall see many aspects of this fossil Pennine landscape, including ring cairns, cairnfields, field systems, burnt mounds, late prehistoric/Romano-British settlements and the Grinton-Fremington Dikes. Bring packed lunch. Please let us We are hoping to arrange a visit to the know if you are intending to come by newly refurbished Scarborough completing the enclosed booking/order Rotunda in the autumn. Further details form. in the next newsletter. Page 4

Research Projects Return to the margin: changes in green Brownfield Sites in West Yorkshire. space on the edge of York. Terry O’Connor still needs records of the wildlife of old Concern about the erosion of green spaces along the industrial or derelict urban sites in West Yorkshire. If inner edge of York’s green belt has been regularly you have existing records, please send them to him, expressed for at least 30 years, but this has not either by e-mail: ([email protected], putting interfered with the construction of major housing ‘brownfield sites’ as the message subject) or by post estates and shopping centres at the urban margin. In to the PLACE Office. rd 1996 the opportunity arose, as part of the 3 If you know of other brownfield sites, which you would National Land Use Survey (the Land Use – UK be prepared to survey as part of the project, please Project), to undertake a comprehensive study of contact Terry via the PLACE Office. We are offering changes in land use at the rural/urban interface. up to 6 grants of £50 each to volunteers to Detailed analysis of 8 major sites on the inner edge undertake fieldwork as part of this project. of the York green belt confirmed that progressive ‘hollowing out’ of the belt was increasingly threatening the preservation of green space close to Monitoring road verges on the North York the city. The results were published in Town & Country: contemporary issues at the rural/urban Moors. interface (PLACE, 2000). PLACE members have been involved with monitoring We now wish to recruit sites of botanical interest on road verges in the volunteers to undertake field National Park for several years. recording of the land use The verges are already changes over the past 12 years. designated and distrib- The results will be published by uted throughout the PLACE and will include . recommendations for future More volunteers are designations in the green belt. wanted urgently! If you A training session for volunteers could find time to visit one will be held in summer 2008. or more special interest verges at least 3 times during PLACE is offering up to 6 grants of £50 each to the spring and summer, please contact Margaret people volunteering to take part in this project, Atherden via the PLACE Office for further details. which will be led by Michael Hopkinson. Please contact the PLACE Office a.s.a.p. to register your Other projects: interest in taking part. Historical research in Kettlewell The Wharram Percy ecological survey Hedgerows of Skelton Parish has now been completed and the report Historical research on the Kiplin Hall Estate will be written up shortly. Terry O’Connor will We are awaiting further details of these 3 projects be returning to the site in May with another Watch from the relevant partner organisations. If you can help group, to look for more snails! with any of them, please let us know.

PLACE Board and Officers To contact PLACE: Dr Peter Addyman By post: PLACE Office, Dr Margaret Atherden (Chief Executive and Company York St John University, Secretary) Lord Mayor’s Walk, Mr Glenn Gorner York, Ms Barbara Hickman (Chair of the Board) YO31 7EX. Dr Michael Hopkinson (Treasurer) By phone: 01904 766291. Professor David Maughan Brown Professor Terry O’Connor By e-mail: [email protected] Dr George Sheeran Website: www.place.uk.com Dr Steve Watson