Feature

Hallowed Turf? From Ritual to Restoration

Dartmoor upland peat towards Teignhead Farm © Caya Edwards

Dartmoor peat has been our source of fire and water for millennia.

Walk up on to the high ground on Dartmoor at any time of year and the going gets more difficult with each squelchy footfall. Standing in this open landscape surrounded by miles of blanket bog, thoughts turn to the people of the past and what brought them here. In many cases it seems to have been the peat. This material is made up of layer upon layer of partially decomposed sphagnum moss and one of its qualities is the ability to retain water. Traversing this wet mass is very difficult for humans and animals and it is why a number of peat passes have been constructed over time to allow access to more remote areas.

Watery landscapes have been valued and exploited by humans for thousands of years. Dartmoor’s world-renowned archaeological sites, Bronze Age stone circles and stone rows and the well-known White Horse Hill burial cist, are situated within the peat and the entire upland is a prehistoric landscape containing subtle remnants of past human activity. Peat has been cut and dried for hundreds of years to keep hearths burning across the moor and beyond, preserving life and warming homes against the harsh winters. It was used extensively in the Dartmoor tin industry; turned into charcoal, it burned as fiercely as any coal and remarkably it was even exported to Cornwall, when Cornish tin miners recognised its excellent quality! For more information on the peat cutters and the uses of peat, see Tim Sandles’ article on his website Legendary Dartmoor.

Today Dartmoor peat is valued for different reasons Fast forward to the present day and the blanket peat is valued for very different reasons. Digging peat for fuel is no longer allowed and the water that falls on Dartmoor is ultimately our drinking water. Increasing awareness of climate change has turned the international spotlight on peat uplands for their ability to store carbon and since 2015 the South West Peatland Partnership has carried out work on high Dartmoor to restore areas of degraded peat, with the aim of ensuring that it can fulfil the function of holding water and storing carbon into the future.

Therein lies a problem, how do we safeguard the wildness and remoteness of Dartmoor and at the same time carry

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Naturally formed peat bog with sphagnum, upper reaches of the East Dart © Chris Chapman Tinners’ mould stone Dartmoor © Caya Edwards

out work with heavy equipment in remote areas of formerly untouched blanket peat? How do we plan for work that must be carried out within delicate ecosystems and world renowned archaeological landscapes, and how do we know the extent of the degraded peat or the best way to identify and conserve damaged areas? The Dartmoor Society Autumn conference looks at this restoration work. Hallowed Turf: Perspectives on the Conservation of Dartmoor’s Blanket Peat will be held on Friday, November 12 at the Charter Hall, Okehampton. The Dartmoor Society is a charity well-known for hosting events that bring together experts to discuss subjects relating to Dartmoor and this year the focus is on how best to conserve blanket peat. How do you conserve peat? What restoration work is planned and how is it carried out? Water companies, farmers, archaeologists and nature conservationists have differing priorities. Can they find ways to achieve the same goal of conserving the peat and protecting the landscape? Caya Edwards, secretary of the Dartmoor Society, is organising the conference: ‘With the publication of the Mire on the Moors report in 2020 we thought it a good time to invite some of those most closely involved in the project to talk about their work. We are so pleased that all the scientists and professionals we asked agreed to take part and we really appreciate the efforts they have made to prepare the information for us to hear on the day. We are also delighted that Keith Bungay, former chief executive of Exmoor National Park Authority, who has also worked extensively on Dartmoor, has agreed to chair the conference. ‘Almost all the speakers are directly involved in this project or have knowledge that can contribute to our understanding of an undertaking on this scale, but one of the speakers, Geoff Eyres is a farmer and agricultural businessman from the Peak District. For the past 30 years, on his own initiative, he has developed methods to regenerate peat and associated flora on his land. He is coming down especially to talk at this conference and it will be interesting to hear how one person’s initiative has persisted and what the results have been. We wonder, could his ideas be of use to us on Dartmoor?’

Another speaker, Richard Brazier, heads the University of Exeter research team behind the Peatland Partnership’s project and he will talk about the science that has informed the restoration programme. Rural social scientist and conservationist Adrian Colston will reflect on how different stakeholder interests make the project so complex and sometimes controversial, and Morag Angus from SWW will talk about the logistics of this complex work and how it is carried out on the ground. Kevin Cox is chairman of the UK RSPB and he will talk about the impacts on birds and nature conservation in the areas subject to re-wetting. Martin Gillard, environment officer for the South West Peatland Partnership, will give the audience some insights into how archaeological sites are considered and the potential for new finds in the peatland restoration programme. For more details see the Dartmoor Society websitedartmoorsociety.com/conference The conference papers will be summarised in a forthcoming Dartmoor Society members publication.