Reports

WILL RAWLING - ‘’Common Land’’ 27th May

Will Rawling came to speak to us again this week. He has previously described his life as a local farmer but this week was talking about Common Land - there is a lot in Cumbria mainly now owned by the National Trust. This might be expected as although 17% of all land in the UK is common land 70% is in the Lake District and surrounding areas mostly given to the trust in lieu of death duties.
Will showed us some lovely photos of common land round here and they reminded us all how lucky we are to live near such amazing landscapes.
Common Land grazing goes back to the Magna Carta and the sheep raised have strong territorial instincts - Will’s sheep graze over large areas but stay within familiar farmland - the number of sheep allowed is determined by the amount of ‘enclosed’ land each farm has and the current allocations were last made in 1964.
Sheep farming using the areas between owned farmland has been going on since Neolithic times with archaeology from the Stone Age showing how little has changed in practice since then. It is the reason the Lake District looks like it does and is encouraged as a means towards land reclamation. Grazing on common land encourages native plants such as Gorse which are very good at fixing nitrogen in the soil and are helping combat recent changes to our climate.
We drive past common land whenever we venture out of town and it was interesting to hear Will talk about the history of something we all take for granted.