Allerton Cover A5 9mm spine 14/12/11 10:54 Page 1 This book will appeal to anyone with an interest in the countryside, including people from far beyond the area it describes, as well as those E within it. The book is about the history and wildlife of a farmed landscape, X P and the context is topical and relevant to researchers and to future policy. L O EXPLORING A There has never been a more crucial time for us to understand the land R on which we depend. There has also never been a time when we have I N PRODUCTIVE LANDSCAPE been so isolated from it. G A The book takes a novel approach to understanding our long and constantly P evolving relationship with the land, how it has been managed in the past, R O and how it can continue to sustain us in future. It concentrates on the D catchment of the Leicestershire Eye Brook, an area that is home to a thriving U C research and demonstration farm and an active community, members of T I which have contributed to this book in numerous ways. Combining local V knowledge with scientific knowledge in this way to develop a shared E understanding of how the catchment might be managed in future is a unique L A approach that is likely to be emulated elsewhere. N D S C A P E : t h e E y e B r o o k C “This fascinating and thoroughly researched book... exemplifies the importance a t c of historical knowledge in making contemporary land management decisions h and concludes with an examination of the links between food production and m wildlife conservation and how both may be sustained.” e n t From a long history From the foreword by Charles Watkins Professor of Rural Geography, to a sustainable future Nottingham University in the Eye Brook catchment Exploring a Productive Landscape From a long history to a sustainable future in the Eye Brook catchment Chris Stoate with contributions from Eye Brook catchment community members: Jim Auterson, Andrew Brown, Harry Clements, Freda Davis, Ken Farnsworth, Norman Farnsworth, Violet Fryer, Sheena Girvan, Jean Graythorpe, Ray Green, Paul Herrington, Jim Inchley, Phil Jarvis, Philip Johnson, Vivienne Kennedy, John Manby, Roger Marshall, Ena Meecham, Andy Miller, Ruth Munton, Joe Nourish, Mary Nourish, Gareth Owen, Edie Parker, Joe Roberts, Miriam Stoate, John Szczur, Richard Vause, Audrey Walker, Philip Walker, David Walker, Anne Wallis, John Wood, Peter Wright & Tony Wright. 1 Contents Research Background • 4 Welcome • 5 Published 2010 by The Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust, Fordingbridge, Foreword • 6 Hampshire SP6 1EF on behalf of the Eye Brook Community Project. Registered Charity No. 1112023 Introduction • 7 ISBN: 978-1-901369-12-0 Chapter 1 • 14 Eye Brook history All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means – photographic, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or information storage or retrieval systems – Chapter 2 • 37 without the permission of the publishers. The Eye Brook community in transition – the 1930s and ‘40s Copyright © The Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust 2010 on behalf of the Eye Brook Community Project. Chapter 3 • 70 The Eye Brook catchment today All photographs © C. Stoate unless otherwise stated. Edited by Miriam Stoate. Chapter 4 • 110 The Eye Brook catchment in future Designed, printed and bound locally on 9 Lives Silk (part recycled) paper by Soar Valley Press. Chapter 5 • 125 Conclusions Cover photo: The lower Eye Brook catchment, with the Points on Policy • 132 village of Belton, and Eyebrook Reservoir in the distance. Title page photo: The Upper Eye Brook catchment at Halstead. Bibliography • 134 Index • 141 2 3 Welcome Research Background to the Project First of all, a big ‘thank you’ to the many people from throughout the catchment and researchers from further afield who have contributed in any way to this book. A primary aim of this book is to stimulate discussion and positive action About forty local people have contributed directly to the text and others have within the Eye Brook community and beyond. The intention is that both the helped by contributing childhood memories, providing photographs, historical approach that has been taken, and the lessons that have been learned from documents and other information, responding to surveys, or simply by expressing that approach, will have wide application to other catchments and the support for the project and its annual newsletter,The Eye. This book is for you, and communities living within them. for the other residents of the Eye Brook catchment who have not had the time, knowledge or inclination to contribute to the project but who are very much a This book arises out of a catchment community project carried out between part of the catchment community. Welcome also to readers from outside the Eye 2006 and 2010. The project took a social learning approach to develop a Brook catchment – the work of the project has wide relevance, and the ideas can shared understanding within the community of environmental issues at the be adapted to differing circumstances in other areas. The book is an account of the catchment scale. The novelty of this approach is that it combines historical, information available to us at the time, and an invitation to everyone living in the local and scientific knowledge cultures in order to strengthen that under- catchment, as well as associated researchers and policy makers, to develop it further standing, and to enhance the sense of ‘ownership’, both of the learning process, by providing additional ideas and information about the past and for the future. and of the environmental problems and opportunities. The project is timely. There is growing concern about the effects of climate change, the increasing human population, rising individual consumption, and declining resources such as oil and phosphate on our ability to sustain our society. Sustainable production of food and fuel are the greatest challenges facing our society today. While these issues are actively debated amongst academics and policy makers, and amongst environmental groups, engagement of the wider community as a whole, especially in issues associated with climate change adaptation and mitigation, is recognised as being a key requirement for a sustainable future. Active involvement of the ‘third sector’ in meeting the needs of society is also currently advocated more widely. Issues associated with water have risen rapidly up the policy agenda and include security of water supply, improvement of water quality, and control of flooding. It is widely recognised that an integrated approach to catchment or river basin management, based on interdisciplinary research, is essential to understanding and addressing water management. There are few examples in the UK or abroad where such an approach is genuinely adopted in practice. Eyebrook Reservoir from the north, with woodland, arable fields and grassland. 4 5 Foreword Introduction This fascinating and thoroughly researched book provides a deep history of a Never have so many demands been made on the British countryside. It provides group of parishes on the borders of Leicestershire and Rutland. It is based on much of our food, all our water, and is increasingly expected to provide our fuel as research carried out over four years but draws on a much longer seam of first hand well. Rural landscapes and the enormous diversity of wildlife associated with them, knowledge through the careful use of oral histories to provide a vivid insight into in water and on land, provide much of our recreation. Those landscapes have been the life and work of the people living in the area. More than this, however, it shows shaped by the changing needs of countless generations of people over at least five how people used local resources and made and managed the many features of the thousand years. Now, a growing population, locally, nationally, and globally, places landscape: hedges, woods, houses, and fields.The complicated relationships between increasing pressure on this rich heritage and the strain is starting to show. people and the animals and crops they depended on are carefully examined. This book takes a fresh approach to understanding these pressures. We can learn The historical sources used are very varied and include old maps, estate documents from the long history of land management. Over a much shorter timescale, we can and, perhaps most important, the landscape itself: the ancient woods, old lanes, the learn from those who have been managing the land during the course of long lives. Eye Brook and the enclosure hedges and fences.This historical material is combined We can also learn from scientific research into what is happening today. In the with the results of recent ecological survey work and research. For me some of the following chapters, these different types of knowledge are combined to improve most interesting material was provided by the detailed oral histories which our understanding of how the countryside works. The need to do so is great. Only described, for example, how animals were taken to market in the early twentieth 20% of British people live in the countryside, and of them, only a very small century; the great care in which individual trees and woodland rides were managed, proportion is actively involved in its management. We have lost that direct link with and hand milking of cows. The book exemplifies the importance of historical the land on which we depend for so much. knowledge in making contemporary land management decisions and concludes with an examination of the links between food production and wildlife conservation and The following chapters are about a small stream catchment in the heart of England, how both may be sustained.