How Yorkshire folk are taking back control with community bids to buy Bridestones Moor

“A lot of people are passionate about the place,” said campaigner Anthony Arak. “The stones have so much folklore and there are so many stories behind them.

“It’s such an iconic landscape - we have to try and save it.”

These stones are surrounded by folklore. There’s the ‘bride’, and the ‘groom’, twisted faces and animal shapes. Once, this was a place for druids and pagan worship or ceremonies.

Today, through a web of footpaths crossing the land, it is popular with ‘boulderers’, alive with wildlife such as curlew, lapwing, golden plover or red grouse.

To Dr Arak, this is a landscape that feels like a wide open space. Until you come to the stones, rocky sentinels standing tall over wild, windswept moors.

“They add such character to the landscape, like frozen giants looking down over the valley below,” he said. “The Bridestone must be one of the most photographed in Yorkshire.”

The land was privately owned, although popular with visitors. Put up for sale, it was suggested it might be returned to nature.

Bridestones Rewilded is a community interest company (CIC) with a bid accepted to buy the land. Now starts the serious work, crowdfunding and seeking out grant aid.

Teams hope to create a local nature reserve that is accessible to all, and ‘owned’ by the community who self-funded it. Then to create education tools, conservation work to help ‘slow the flow’ of water into the valley below, and to restore what once was a blanket bog.

“We hope to restore the peat bog - originally it was a blanket bog,” said Dr Arak. “We can bring it back to life. That is very important to do - blanket bogs are an important carbon store. Peat bogs cover just three per cent of the world’s surface, but they store more carbon than all the world’s forests put together.”

Campaigners behind the CIC are made up of a mix of keen naturalists. There’s an expert botanist and micrologist, a wildlife photographer and social worker, ornithologist, ecologist and expert on wetland birds. Dr Arak himself comes from a zoology background.

They work well together, he said, bringing their own strengths to the table and now seeking support from volunteers who can help in reshaping this landscape.

This is about saving nature, he said. But it’s also about the power that communities hold. In taking control, and reclaiming their landscapes.

“It’s helping people to realise that they can make a difference - that they can do something to help in the battle against climate change and over biodiversity,” said Dr Arak.

“It doesn’t have to be huge organisations or charities. Smaller groups of people acting together can make a big difference locally.”

To support the crowdfunder and donate visit www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/bridestones-rewilded/