Protect our landscape from thugs who come to dig it up

How I agree with you on the preservation of our dry stone walls (Yorkshire Post, February 16).

They are symbolic of our county and the theft and vandalism of these wonderful features of our countryside must stimulate every effort, both official and individual, to arrest their destruction.

I live on the outskirts of Sheffield and am more regularly familiar with the Peak District stone wall landscape; a return journey from the west or south along the Ashbourne-Buxton road turning off at Newhaven over the limestone plateau towards Youlgreave on a spring or summer evening, when the late sun is declining, unveils a scene that never fails to thrill.

The eye is seduced by a vista of delicate yellows and intense greens, of undulating pastureland and ash tree copses and miniature woods highlighted by the white luminosity of interweaving limestone walls.

Whatever beauty I’ve seen in other parts of Britain or Europe, it is a vision that never disappoints. The walls, when compared to hedges, add an extra texture to the greenery – especially when enhanced by the striking scars of white limestone outcrops as well as the abundance of deep, often densely wooded valleys. Sublime! Yorkshire has all this; moreover, it had the added phenomenon of a rarity in the world, uncommon even in the Karst landscapes of Croatia and the Mediterranean, namely amazing stretches of limestone pavements.

This scarce wonder, in Britain, is concentrated on the Yorkshire Dales, the old Westmorland and north west Lancashire; in our islands, only the Burren in County Clare, Ireland, can compare.

Of course, there are those who might prefer the less spectacular, more cuddly scenery that typifies the hedgerow greenery of Wessex and the South but we have all that in Yorkshire too, in Ryedale, the Hambleton and Howardian hills and parts of south Yorkshire – equal in my opinion, to the Cotswolds. And Dartmoor can be eclipsed by the North York Moors and the Millstone Grit Pennine lands of the Peak District and West Yorkshire. I’ve not even mentioned the delights of the Wolds or the coast.

What a region! It must be conserved. It’s therefore imperative to preserve that heritage and stop the environmental thugs who dig up those precious and diminishing pavements and destroy our tumbling walls.