Rain was on the horizon as we drove to the elbow at Midhopestones where there was just an energetic breeze, with no rain, to spring us out of our desultory feeling. Bob had planned a fine tour including the Sugden and Bull Cloughs, Midhope Moors, Outer Edge, returning via, or near Pike Lowe. All good natural moorland, or was it? We had all grown up with this landscape assuming it was ever thus but it had been modified over the centuries by grazing, burning, pollution, boundary marking and path or track making. Our first example of modification was the concrete track towards Sugden Clough and a well-hidden underground bunker which looked particularly claustrophobic, apparently used for storage at some time. Leaving the now peat track for deep heather and bilberry, we were warned by Bob of the dangers of descending a particularly slippery blue plastic track material (also believed to be illegal?).
Having negotiated this hazard and started up Bull Clough, our next point of interest was found in the dried stream bed. Whilst we casually trundled up it, we were unaware of more danger in the form of an unexploded device! We were assured that it wasn’t very dangerous (?) but there was a noticeable increase in pace from very slow to slow as we cleared off. (Could this be another training aid?). Back to a sort of normality, we thought, was our visit to a moorland pool but, no, this was a bomb crater now almost dried out for us to stand around with our historical advisors (Ian, Tim and Russ) sizing out the place.
Ooh er!
The history boys?
The effects of seeing an unexploded device and then the results of an exploded device meant we wanted some calm which was provided by our search for an alien tea plant apparently from Labrador. However our efforts at collecting sufficient leaves for a relaxing brew were curtailed by its rather unappetising pungent smell. Tea anybody?
In a miniature version of Macbeth’s moving Dunsinane Wood, we spotted a crawling bilberry leaf. Whether we had been intoxicated by the Labradorian tea fragrance is open to question but the bright green leaf did move under its own power, what a truly splendid insect! Oh and by the way, we did plough across the heather and tussocks to Outer Edge trig point and no one was lost in the bogs, unusually, they were dry. We left for another sort of crater this time with some wreck remains.
Wreck
Our dangerous living was topped off by one final crater with a sign indicating a V1 bomb and its date which happened to be my birth date.
V1 bomb 24.12.44
A bit of railway
Whilst the date was correct, the bomb was a parachute one. Coincidentally and equally confusing, a bomb dropped on Halifax on the day I was born and all the babies were transferred to the hospital shelter and returned later. I was returned to the wrong mother and eventually to the right one (I think) though I’m still not sure who I really am.
All this excitement had exhausted us so we declared, that after about two hours, there was just too much heather to traverse to reach Pike Lowe. To soften the disappointment, Roger recounted a visit to Christchurch in New Zealand where a museum displayed a small patch, about 1m square, of carefully tended heather which visitors were admiring as a sort of curiosity. Roger was not impressed. Our overload of artefacts continued when we got back to the concrete track where Ian pointed out a small section of a railway line used for rolling decoy tanks for target practice. All this military paraphernalia was explained by the fact that Midhopestones and the surrounding area was requisitioned by the army during the last war. It should be obvious, perhaps, from the name of the local moor, Range Moor.
We did encounter some nature, although very few birds, and some unnatural features which were gradually and fortunately being swallowed up by nature. What a spectacular outing finished off nicely with a visit to The Plough in Low Bradfield where Jim joined us after almost catching us up on the moors during our crater search. Many thanks to all.
Graham
Moor balloon collector and military history guide
Our route, thanks to Russ
