Walking the Moor

I love open spaces and I'm drawn to places like a moor. So, I found some beautiful pics taken on various moors and added some interesting information and poetry. Now I can "go walking on the moor" whenever I feel like it.

A moor is a tract of open uncultivated upland, usually in Britain, also called a heath. They are covered in vegetation such as heather, gorse, and course grasses. Moors are cataloged as Ericaceae (the heath family).

Eastern British moorlands are similar to heaths but are topped by a layer of peat. This peat layer can be meters thick on the Western moors.. (In general, heaths are found in lowlands while moors are located upland.)

Scottish 'muirs' are generally heather moors, with a wide covering of mosses, grass, cotton-grass, bracken and under-shrubs like crowberry; the wetter moorlands have a covering of sphagnum moss that can morph into bog.

(the pic at right is Crowberry)

Machrie

by Charlotte Bronte

Speak of the North! A lonely moor

Silent and dark and tractless swells,

The waves of some wild streamlet pour

Hurriedly through its ferny dells.

Profoundly still the twilight air,

Lifeless the landscape; so we deem

Till like a phantom gliding near

A stag bends down to drink the stream.

And far away a mountain zone,

A cold, white waste of snow-drifts lies,

And one star, large and soft and lone,

Silently lights the unclouded skies.

Rannoch

Birds

On European moors you can find several bird species:

Red Grouse

Hen Harrier, Merlin

Golden Plover

Curlew, Skylark

Meadow Pipit

Whinchat

Ring Ouzel,

Twite

(pic at right: Red Grouse).

Some well known Moorlands: (alphabetical order)

* Bleaklow, Dark Peak, UK

* Bodmin Moor, Cornwall, UK

* the Forest of Bowland Lancashire, uk

* Curry and Hay Moors, Somerset, UK

* Dartmoor, and Dartmoor wildlife, Devon, UK

* Emley Moor, West Yorkshire, UK

* Exmoor, West Somerset & North Devon UK

* Ilkley Moor, West Yorkshire, UK

* Marston Moor and North York Moors, North Yorkshire, UK

* Rannoch Moor, Highland, Scotland, UK

* Rombalds Moor, West Yorkshire, UK

* Saddleworth Moor, Lancashire, UK

* Shropshire Hills, small pockets of moorland such as the Long Mynd, UK

* Somerset Levels and Moors, central Somerset, UK

* Staffordshire Moorlands, South West Peak District, UK

* Ythan Estuary complex, Aberdeenshire, Scotland (a large coastal moor)

A couple moors outside the UK:

* Tanner Moor, Austria

* GroÃes Torfmoor, Germany

Haworth

by Wm. V Moody

A mile behind is Gloucester town

Where the fishing fleets put in,

A mile ahead the land dips down

And the woods and farms begin.

Here, where the moors stretch free

In the high blue afternoon,

Are the marching sun and talking sea,

And the racing winds that wheel and flee

On the flying heels of June.

Jill-o'er-the-ground is purple blue,

Blue is the quaker-maid,

The wild geranium holds its dew

Long in the boulder's shade.

Wax-red hangs the cup

From the huckleberry boughs,

In barberry bells the grey moths sup

Or where the choke-cherry lifts high up

Sweet bowls for their carouse.

Over the shelf of the sandy cove

Beach-peas blossom late.

By copse and cliff the swallows rove

Each calling to his mate.

Seaward the sea-gulls go,

And the land-birds all are here;

That green-gold flash was a vireo,

And yonder flame where the marsh-flags grow

Was a scarlet tanager.

Saddleworth

by Katherine Knight

Any road leads anywhere;

Come out in the flush of the dawning,

And follow me over the fields of clover,

Wet with the dew of the morning.

Any road leads anywhere;

Come out to the bracken and heather,

And climb the hill with the mighty will

Of the world and the wind and the weather.

Morning mists on the fields above,

Sun on the moor and the river;

And sun below where the birch trees grow,

And the magical harebells shiver.

Any road leads anywhere.

Shadow and sun blow over;

And all's to dare with nothing to care

For the heart of the true-born rover.

Some of the roads lead down and down,

But follow the roads that climb,

And nought shall sever your joy for ever,

From now to the end of time

Moorlands suited the English Romantic mindset to a tee (or should I say tea). Using the rough terrain of a moor, authors could raise the emotional impact of their story.

Literataure set on a moor:

WUTHERING HEIGHTS by Emily Brontë

THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES by Arthur Conan Doyle

THE FAMOUS FIVE by Enid Blyton (a series about adventurous youths).

THE SECERET GARDEN by Frances Hodgson Burnett

Starring Merle Oberon and Laurence Olivier