A Landscape Strategy for Lancashire - Landscape Character Assessment

Wooded Limestone Hills and Pavements

Landscape Character

The Wooded Limestone Hills and Pavements is a diverse, small scale landscape of rolling hills, species rich grassland and scrub, ancient woodlands, rocky outcrops, limestone pavements, reed beds and pools and a small eutrophic lake, Hawes Water. Some of the land is rough grazing, much of it tending to revert to scrub woodland: like the improved pastures it is bounded by a network of limestone walls. The woodlands are particularly characteristic; ancient woodland, much of which has been formerly coppiced, is dominated by ash and hazel with oak, small-leaved lime and yew. Scattered clumps of veteran trees in the secondary woodlands indicate the presence of ancient wood pasture. The landscape is rich in visible historic features including evidence of former industry and historic field patterns; lime kilns indicate burning of lime for a variety of uses. Abandoned limestone quarries are a feature and often provide valuable habitats for wildlife, or are used for recreational activities. The parkland landscape of Leighton Hall, including some mixed woodland also adds to the variety of landscape elements within the area.

Physical Influences

The variety of landforms reflects the underlying geology of Carboniferous limestone. These rocks were deposited beneath the warm shallow waters of an ancient sea which subsequently became uplifted to form limestone hills.

During the Quaternary, huge ice sheets repeatedly covered the area, sweeping away overlying soils and eroding weaker beds of limestone. The grykes on limestone pavements have formed as the result of solution by mildly acidic rainfall. Permanent streams are absent due to the permeability of the limestone. Soils are predominantly neutral to alkaline, although in some areas fine wind blown loess creates patches of acidic soil.

The area supports a rich and diverse range of natural habitats, many associated with limestone conditions. Unimproved calcareous grasslands, scrub and woodland cover much of the hills and cliff tops. The flora and fauna is outstandingly rich with many rare species including the Lancastrian whitebeam (Sorbus lancastriensis), which is entirely confined to the limestones around Morecambe Bay. As livestock grazing has diminished over the last 50 years, secondary woodland has expanded considerably. Ash and birch species dominate, with oak and an understory typically of hazel, hawthorn and holly.

Scattered clumps of veteran trees particularly oak, elm and yew are important features and may be remnants of ancient wood pasture. The principal areas of ancient woodland are designated as SSSIs; sites such as Cringlebarrow and Deepdale, Eaves Wood and Gait Barrows, are likely to represent truly ancient semi - natural woodland. They contain a significantly higher proportion of sessile oaks, and in particular small leaved limes. A rich woodland ground flora is able to flourish due to the light shade cast by the high proportion of ash, which has also led to important communities of fungi, invertebrates and mammals such as roe, red and fallow deer.

The hill-top mosaic of semi-natural calcareous grassland and limestone pavement outcrops provides a rich range of habitats for insects including butterflies such as the high brown fritillary, northern brown argus and duke of burgundy fritillary. In summer wild flowers carpet the limestone grasslands. Nationally rare and scarce plants occur in the grassy sward, and on the bare rocky scars and pavements.

Human Influences

The earliest evidence of human influence is found in the limestone caves at the foot of Warton Crag, although permanent habitation cannot be confirmed until the Neolithic. Pollen evidence and stone axes found at Storrs Moss indicate forest clearance and cultivation. Material discovered at Warton Crag provides evidence of ritual activity. By the Bronze Age, it is believed the area was being intensively farmed as burial mounds indicate occupation by a settled population.

An Iron Age fort on the top of Warton Crag may be indicative of the unsettled nature of the later prehistoric period.

Place name evidence suggests some Viking settlement, whilst other sites have Old English or Norman origins. The pattern of nucleated linear villages, is still evident in Yealand, Warton and Hale. Settlements were associated with communal open fields of arable land and surrounded by areas of common grazing and waste. In some places 17^th century enclosure retained the furlongs of the open fields. In contrast to this farmed eastern fringe, the interior supported isolated farms and communal grazing. Woodlands were a fully integrated part of the local economy and their character today reflects management practices which originate in the medieval period. Almost all of the woodlands were managed for foraging and pasture grazing for livestock, as a source of timber and by coppicing and pollarding to provide a ready source of young wood or poles. The crop of young wood was of great value to the local charcoal burning iron furnaces, to the local bobbin industry and for manufacturers of a range of woodland products such as swill baskets and hurdles.

19^th century enclosure, apparently late for Lancashire, and subsequent improvements led to great changes in the landscape. Many small quarries (mostly now abandoned) were developed as commercial and private enterprises by individual farmers, while others were owned communally and provided the building materials required for a parish. Limestone was also roasted in local quarries, the principal ones being at Warton Crag and Trowbarrow, to produce limewash, mortar and plaster and fertiliser. Mines for copper and iron ore are also found in the area. The mines were usually shallow workings at locations where the ore outcropped at the surface, as on top of Cringlebarrow in Yealand Redmayne.

Leighton Moss is an extensive area of wetland which is composed of a mosaic of Phragmites reed beds, open water, willow scrub and a fringe of semi-improved pasture. This area was drained and used for agriculture, however pumping ceased after the first world war and it reverted back to wetland. It is now an important bird reserve owned and managed by the RSPB. The chimney which was part of the pumping house still exists below Warton Crag.

CHARACTER AREAS - WOODED LIMESTONE HILLS AND PAVEMENTS

Arnside and Silverdale is the only landscape character area in the study area in the Wooded Limestone Hills and Pavements landscape character type within the study area. It is found in the far north west of the county and extends into Cumbria. This landscape character area falls within the Arnside and Silverdale AONB.