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Fertile ground for debate on future of flood meadows
IN medieval times, flood meadows were among the most prized assets in the landscape because they fertilised themselves.
Each winter, alluvial deposits were dumped on them from the overflow of whichever river ran nearby, a process requiring no effort or investment by the farmer.
In 1523, The Boke of Surveying and Improvements explained the benefits. "yf there be any rynning water or lande flode that may be sette or brought to ronne ouer the meddowes from the tyme that they be mown vnto the begynning of May – and they wil be moche the bettr and it shall kylle, drowne and driue awaye the moldywarpes and fyll vp the lowe places with sande & make ther grounde euyn and good to mowe..."
The moldywarpes have since been driven away by other means – drainage, changes in agriculture and developers. Just two per cent of these species-rich meadows remain in England and Wales. These remnants are protected by law. But they are still at risk from environmental change and its consequences – especially summer floods, which are as damaging to the meadows as the winter ones are beneficial.
Ensuring the meadows' survival and restoration to their glorious best is tricky.
A Floodplain Meadows Partnership is now pulling together the strands involved in the task, and the research is led by David Gowing, Professor of Botany at the Open University.
In York, the greensward begins at Scarborough Bridge and a few more minutes strolling up river brings you to Clifton Bridge. North of this, as far as the outer ring road bridge and just beyond it, lies Clifton and Rawcliffe Ings, one of the threatened areas now being investigated by Professor Gowing and the partnership.
These meadows represent five per cent of what is left of this rare habitat.
Not a lot has altered here since before the agricultural revolution, and digging into the history of this land can be rather like opening a book on how we used to live.
The floodplain partnership brings to bear the experience of people with different perspectives – from site managers to conservationists, landowners and local volunteers.
Recently, a dozen people with a professional interest in the Ings gathered for a fact-finding walk organised by the Farming & Wildlife Advisory Group (FWAG) along with the OU, the Environment Agency, Natural England and York Council.
At intervals along the route, the group stopped for a specialist to illustrate certain points. By the end of the afternoon's journey, their collective knowledge had provided an object lesson
in how to read a landscape.
Rawcliffe Ings, owned by the Environment Agency, is lightly-grazed and let annually to a farmer. The agency also owns the adjacent Rawcliffe Meadows which, since 1991, have been enhanced and maintained by a group of volunteers.
Ownership of the part nearest York – the 110 acres of Clifton Ings – is muddied by the waters of time. It was recorded in the Domesday survey in 1085-6 as a key element in the York farming economy. It noted the King owned three acres and the rest was split into small pieces. That is still the case today. The land is owned by York Council but what grows on it belongs to a clutch of people.
"You've got the Earl of Harewood and the Church Commissioners, all sorts – about eight or 10," said Norman Crabtree, one of the afternoon's invited walkers and the farmer who has taken a hay crop from Clifton Ings for the past 25 years.
"There's another chap who owns a plot two yards wide. It's a feudal system, very confusing. There's quite a bit of herbage in the hay. I took it to an old chap on the hills who had sheep and cattle and he said it had medicinal value. He gave it to his sheep when they were off-colour and they were soon looking perky."
The hay and the timing of its cutting is important to the vitality of the Ings which have more than 30 species of plant per metre, making it one of the richest habitats in the UK. It's home to the increasingly scarce tansy beetle. No rare plants grow here, it's the assemblage of the various types that makes it so unusual and valuable. Norman Crabtree's hay-cutting rgime is supposed to maintain them in balance.
For now it is out of kilter. Closer to the river there's a profusion of wildflowers. Nearer a ditch running through the centre of Clifton Ings is more sedgy plant-life which does not make for tasty hay. The soil nutrient levels are being measured and botanists are recording every metre of vegetation. Professor Gowing indicated that the invasive sedge revealed low fertility. The underlying cause was a lack of draining.
Mark Fuller, the Environment Agency's asset systems technical specialist, sees the Ings from the flood-control perspective. They function as a strategic washland – as the Ouse level rises, a sluice near Clifton Bridge is opened and the waters flow in. The Ings can fill in 20 minutes to its 500m gallons capacity.
That sounds a lot. But for a three-day flood, it's not that significant. The Ings's 69-minutes worth of storage will make about six inches of difference at the top of the flood level in York. The Ings is one of several washplains on the Ouse system where one thing affects another when floods threaten. The experts conceded they do not have the level of knowledge to be able to predict what a change to the flood barriers would bring. There are 200 miles of floodbanks on the Ouse system, and Jeff Pacey, the Ouse catchment manager, explained that for the past two years they had been looking for alternative flood-risk strategies from Selby upwards.
A main cause of increased flooding is suggested by rainwater moving out of upland catchment area more quickly because of moorland gripping – the artificial draining of the moors.
This used to be common because a drier moor was more productive and capital grants funded the work. Now it's being reversed by Natural England. They are blocking the grips to stop peat erosion. But does the gripping increase flooding? Proving it is difficult.
On the Ings walk a skylark was heard and a heron flapped overhead. There used to be lapwings in the spring, but none recently and there are no curlews as you might expect, according to an expert from the RSPB.
It's a broad church that has come together to try to understand exactly how the Ings work and, as with any church, it has its dissenters. Mr Crabtree, perhaps playing devil's advocate, displayed some scepticism towards the project's ambitions.
Generations of his predecessors here would have taken one cut of hay, just as he does. The difference is that they would then have let the owners' livestock on to the land to graze on the aftergrowth.
On Lammas Day, August 1, the Ings would then have been thrown open to the people of York to bring their animals on here too.
Professor Gowing said that in contrast, it has always been the Dutch tradition to take two hay crops and that had led to healthier and more bio-diverse flood meadows. Why not go down the Dutch route?
Judith Sutton, of the Friends of Rawcliffe Meadows organisation, said that having their hay cut twice a year is what turned that site around. The timing of haymaking, however, was crucial and on the Ings this was where the long experience and judgment
of Mr Crabtree came in.
But he declined to accept the plaudits. "It's my son and a man or two who does it. When I say, go, they go. It's just luck."
On Tuesday this week, they went.
For a detailed study of the area, see Martin Hammond's The Ouse Ings, sponsored by the Environment Agency.
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Tuesday 22 May 2012
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