Restoring our peat – wetter and better bog

We often share pictures of Kingsdale Head on rare sunny days but in reality, we sit just under the highest point in Yorkshire, on the edge of Whernside, and we get our fair share of typical Yorkshire wet weather. Although it doesn’t always feel like it, we should celebrate our Yorkshire climate for the unique habitats it creates particularly here at Kingsdale Head where more than half of the farm is on blanket bog or deep peaty habitat.

We are very pleased to be celebrating those unique habitats at the moment and announce our involvement in a project, working with Yorkshire Peat Partnership, made possible through the Nature for Climate Fund. A programme of works over 4 years will restore blanket bogs and peatlands across 3,510 hectares of Northern England including 500 hectares at Kingsdale head.

Blanket bog forms where rainfall exceeds evapotranspiration and natural seepage. The water logging favours bog mosses and an accumulation of dead plant material that doesn’t completely break down. Slowly (over 5,000 years), this locks in layers of carbon as peat and our mild, rain soaked island is the perfect place for it. In fact, the UK has 13% of the worlds blanket bogs making it an internationally important habitat as well as a tremendous carbon store (estimated at 580 million tonnes in England alone).

You would be forgiven for thinking of bogs as fairly barren difficult landscapes but in reality, the closer you look and the more time you spend the more interesting and beautiful they are. Kingsdale’s blanket bogs are home to some fantastic birds of prey like short eared owls as well as some impressive flying insects like large heath butterflies. Looking closely there is a whole range of deep coloured bog mosses and bog plants that are only possible on healthy, wet and bouncy blanket bog.

Unfortunately, there has been extensive land drainage on blanket bog in the past including at Kingsdale Head. This has led to the drying out of peatland, shrinkage of peat, erosion and worryingly, the oxidisation and loss of some of that large carbon store. A combination of this drainage and heavy grazing also has an impact on the vegetation and wildlife that make these wet landscapes unique.   

Our involvement in the Nature for Climate Fund will see more than 5,000 dams and sediment traps installed in drainage channels. The planting of heather and sphagnum to stabilise areas of peat will restore a more natural water table across the whole of Kingsdale Head, locking in carbon deposits in the peatland and inviting back unique blanket bog wildlife. Healthy blanket bogs can also help store water during increasingly frequent severe storms with the potential to decrease flood risk downstream. This work alongside some gentle grazing from our Galloway cattle will create a wetter, but much wilder landscape at Kingsdale Head in the future where bog species can thrive.