Coal Mining in Cumbria

Thick snow clads the fells, the blue sky has turned to pink.    Our garden, our road has been covered in snow for two days.    Early this morning the temperature was minus 8 degrees centigrade.



We stay at home, logs burn in the stove, inside the cottage the air is warm.   All is quiet, peaceful only chattering of birds disturb the calm.

Yesterday in the morning, a short period of excitement.    A van stalled on the hill outside our garden -  a Border TV motor vehicle was stuck in the snow.

The ITV  TV team had arrived to interview our neighbour-Amy Bray.

She lives another mile along the lane.    The crew do not make it past our house.

After strolling up and down the hill the ITV team are rescued by the Bray family.

They arrive with spades and a wheelbarrow, they spread salt and grit, call farming friends.

 An hour passes before two tractors appear to shunt the van up the hill, turn it around.

The crew decide to abandon the plans to interview Amy at her home and "mike her up" on the hill just above our cottage.

Not until 6.15 pm do we know what has brought the team all this way.

Border News broadcast a two maybe three minute interview.

They want to know Amy's opinion of a Cumbria coalmine.   Plans have been developing for the creation of a metallurgical coal mine, known as Woodhouse Colliery, off the coast near Whitehaven.  www.westcumbriamining.com

Currently the UK and Europe steel makers imports 45 million tonnes of coal per annum.

Amy is an environmentalist.    Aged 18 she has set up a charity that has  planted 1700 trees and hedgerows in our valley. www.another-way.org.uk 

History tells of the many people who have made money out of coal in Cumbria.    The Lowther family who have been extracting coal since the 1600's.   The family were responsible for developing large scale coalmining in the Whitehaven area.   

300 million years ago when much of the earth was covered in steamy swamps, plants and trees died, sank to the bottom of the swampy areas and eventually became an organic material that turned into coal.   The process has taken millions and millions of years.  As I listen to Amy's TV broadcast I wonder if she realises that the 6000 trees she plans to plant this year will eventually become coal?

   

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Best Places to see snowdrops in Cumbria and the Lake District

Image
  Snowdrop walks in winter are increasingly popular. Cumbria hosts many wonderful places to see swathes of snowdrops.    Grizedale Forest, Tarn Howes, Grasmere, Sizergh Castle, Dalemain, Dalston or Brockhole, the Lake District National Park's Visitor Centre, all of these places you can visit tomorrow that produce breath taking rewards. Take a wander through the snowdrops that carpet the woodland walks at Crowdundle Beck, Acorn Bank, Temple Sowerby.  Snowdrops - the symbol of hope  The soil is sleeping now.    There is a surge of activity to come.   The first snowdrops are poking their tiny buds above the sodden earth as if to enquire whether it is safe to emerge. The white bell shaped flowers, with smooth dull, green narrow leaves, are the first sign that spring is on the way.    The snowdrop does not have petals but instead has six white flower segments, known as tepals.    There are two structures three outer, convex in ...
Read more

Dead Hedges

Image
  The wind is pummelling the gardens.     The 1 st February 2022 three major storms – Arwen, Malik and Corrie.    In the midst of November 2021 we were without electricity for 4 ½ days. Snow has twice covered the soil.     Yet through January 2022 the land has seen little rain. Strange weather patterns, strange times.   Andy Goldsworthy: Woodland Branch Arch I have been experimenting.      Inspired by landscapers and artist, Andy Goldsworthy, I have dragged branches through the garden into the field on a brilliant blue plastic sheet and woven them together to create “dry hedges”.     Shelter belts for insects and animals.   Nigel Dunnet - Woven Branch Circle Pruning has taken priority – roses, deciduous shrubs but not evergreen, I will leave these until May. The cuttings have always been a problem.     In the past I have had massive bonfires but lessons learnt at Newton Rigg ...
Read more

Wednesday in Winter

Image
A strange day to begin writing a blog about gardens - howling winds, torrential rain outside my fellside home. December in Cumbria limits the amount of gardening possible. Yet the house next door, a typical Lake District farmhouse has landscapers developing a new driveway of gravel and stone. Peering through the window I see waterproofed lads soaked, wet, working diligently. Trees swaying in the wild wind. In the words of that great English gardener Gertrude Jekyll (1843-1932)  "in winter when work is slack or impossible, an important matter in the economy of the garden, is to find the right sort of sticks or stakes.....By the plan of preparing all in winter no precious time is lost, and a tidy withe-bound bundle of the right sort is always at hand."    So my project for the day to find straight stakes for Dahlias, Hollyhocks and bean-poles.    Maybe some kindling for the fire too? A view from my garden on a threatening day in the darkest times of winter.
Read more