Overheard, while eavesdropping on a family argument, on the bridge over the river Derwent: “It’s a dragonfly.” “No, it’s a damselfly.” “It’s amazing!”
They were bewitched by the exquisite bug-eyed, emerald green, needle-bodied insect with gauzy wings, which had settled on a willow leaf near the parapet. A female banded demoiselle damselfly, but what do niceties of nomenclature matter compared with their sheer delight at its balletic aerial performance, snatching flies in midair?
Last time I walked around here, on a chilly spring morning, the meadows were full of cowslips. Toads were waking from hibernation in the woodland, lumbering with grim determination towards Clockburn lake to spawn. Today the flowery grassland, studded with spotted orchids, was seething with thumbnail-sized toadlets, newly emerged from the water. A couple with a toddler shepherded some tiny amphibians across the path, towards safety.
Easy, close contact with nature is only part of the attraction of this popular country park, on the edge of the Tyneside conurbation, just a short bus ride from the hubbub of city life. Less obvious is that this is reclaimed industrial land – an inspiring example of how a scarred, polluted post-industrial landscape can become a haven for nature within a few decades, part of a chain of publicly accessible wildlife habitats extending all the way to Consett.
Clockburn lake was the millpond for Sir Ambrose Crowley’s iron works, established in 1691 and once the largest in Europe. The dam, which regulated the water flow, is one of the few visible reminders that this was a cauldron of the Industrial Revolution. Then, smoke and a cacophony of hammers would have assaulted the senses. Later came a grimy coke works, with coal dust, the acrid stink of tar and creosote, the squeal of steel wheels on iron rails. After it closed in 1986, Gateshead council decontaminated, landscaped, sowed and planted the site. This morning the strongest scent was of wild roses, the loudest sound a lusty wren, the most remarkable sight a circling red kite.
Tynesiders are proud of their industrial heritage, but they could also teach us a thing or two about landscape restoration; here, they anticipated today’s rewilding trends by three decades.
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