Category: Roeburnscar Cottages

Roeburn Remembering Restoring Festival

Posted on by Backsbottom Farm

   

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                                Let us know if you are coming
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Poster by Eller Everett

River Roeburn
Remembering and Restoring Festival
Sat 12th -Sun 13th August 2017
Backsbottom Farm, Roeburndale West,
Nr. Wray, Lancaster La2 9ll

This Free Festival will celebrate and remember 50 years since the Wray flood on 8th August 1967
and will help to engage the local community and general public about the issues around flooding and water management.

Events will include:

  • Historical exhibition of the River Roeburn and events of flooding, landslips and other river changes over the years including Wray Flood and Flood Desmond. In Rural Classroom in the farmyard.  The Wray flood exhibition will be open over the weekend.
  • Rivers Healing Circle to bring together waters from rivers in UK and abroad and their stories (Sunday midday)
  • Photographic competition of photos of rivers or streams in the Lune catchment (especially the Rivers Wenning, Hindburn and Roeburn). In Rural classroom in the farmyard
  • River paintings by Janet Robinson and Hilary Devereaux in Middle Wood Centre
  • Natural Land sculpture workshops. Resident environmental artists Richard Shilling and Julia Chick will be making natural art sculptures from materials gathered nearby in particular locations by the river throughout the festival weekend. Look out for the signs and join them to see what they have been making, learn how to make natural sculptures yourself and spend some quality time next to the enigmatic River Roeburn. All weekend.
  • Search for fossils amongst the river stones
  • Walks to see erosion sites, landslips and ongoing damage from the flash flooding of the River Roeburn. Follow map.
  • Display of Slow the Flow techniques – woody check dams, stone check dams, in river training with careful placement of boulders, wool and bale dams that could be used for reducing peat erosion, blanket bog restoration and the use of mob grazing to increase the infiltration of rain by improving the soil structure. Details from Car park with map follow the mown path.
  • Film showings from other Slow the flow projects. In Yurt near study Centre.
  • Neighbourhood flood plans
  • Large aerial photo of the Rivers Roeburn and Hindburn to help record memories and encourage community engagement. Near Study Centre.
  • River flow experimental area to play with different structures and see how they affect water flow
  • Display by Lune Rivers Trust and River Fly Monitoring (Sunday)
  • N’Dodo – A brillant dancable local band from 3pm Sat
  • Local musicians performing near the river and in the woodlands
  • Quercus, Sian Philips, Paul, Wal and Ruth and friends – Great acoustic music. Sat evening.
  • Two local choirs Lune Valley Voices Sat 7.30 and Wenning Voices Sun 2pm.
  • Dance performance with Dawn Morgan and friends
  • River inspired poetry workshop with Eli Denvir from 11am Sun 
  • Local poetry inspired by the river
  • Sharing of food brought by festival visitors. Picnic by river on Sunday.
  • Beautiful Roeburndale Woodlands and organic orchards
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Natural Land sculpture workshops. (Sat and Sun)
“Resident environmental artists Richard Shilling and Julia Chick will be making natural art sculptures from materials gathered nearby in particular locations by the river throughout the festival weekend. Look out for the signs and join them to see what they have been making, learn how to make natural sculptures yourself and send some quality time next to the enigmatic River Roeburn.”

                               Richard Shilling Land Art
                                      All weekend
Lune Valley Voices                                               N’Dodo
Sat 7.45                                                               3pm Sat
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River Poetry Workshop with Ellie Denvir down by the river. (Sunday from 11am). Gathering words and sounds from our experiences with the river, we will explore relationships and feelings between ourselves, the land and the river, making a collective poem to follow the course of the Roeburn from the fells to the Wenning.  There will be the chance to create individual poems  and join with musicians to perform our work (Sun afternoon).

The invisible river flows through the endless night

Cold stone and loneliness
Deer bark in the woods
Sleeping birds are startled

I sit on a mossy rock and become the stars.
By Paul Michael Fergus Wiggin

Ode to the Roeburn

Your pleasant glades and babbling course helped shape my early life
Our courses set without regret seeing turbulence and strife

You calmly flow but most don’t know the gift that you have been
With twists and turns forgotten like the things that we have seen
Your harnessed strength brought riches once along your flowing course
But in just one day unfettered you showed your might and force
We all forgive what you once did as you raged without control
But will you forgive what we do now as we erode your very soul
I hoped one day I would return to see you again old friend
Your sustenance to life around I thought could never end
With grateful thanks for rewards bestowed to generations gone by
Let the children now protect you and never let you die.

Robert W Marshall
Childhood resident of Wray

Slow The Flow – Check Dams and In River Training
Demonstration area will be on display over the weekend
Follow signs and mowed path from car park.

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Have you been affected by flooding, or had wonderful experiences of a special river?

Come to our

RIVERS SHARING CIRCLE

13 August 12 noon Backsbottom Farm, Roeburndale West,
Nr Lancaster.

By River Roeburn
Shared Jacobs Join picnic Sun
followed by Wenning Voices 2pm Sun

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Poster by Leah Hampson

Photographic competition of photos of rivers or streams in the Lune catchment (especially the Rivers Wenning, Hindburn and Roeburn). Catch that place you love on the river, or that moment with a special light reflection.
Either bring your photos with a completed Entry form to the rural classroom in Backsbottom farmyard on Friday 11 August, or send by post to arrive by then.
Entry £1 per photo.
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Festival Site Map
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Poster by Eller Everett

Camping for Festival is limited to 20 tents so please complete booking form and get confirmation that there is space. Camping will be in field over the wall from the car park. Cost £10 per tent per night.

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OTHER LINKED EVENTS
Wray Flood
Memories & Impacts
On Tuesday 8th August 2017 it will be 50 years since the Wray flood, when 14 homes were either destroyed by a wall of water coming down the river, or so severely damaged they had to be demolished. On this date the village are holding a commemorative exhibition in Wray Institute, from 10am to 8pm. Photographs, newspaper reports, documents and recordings will be on view (many relating to Hornby and Claughton too), and Wray school children’s flood impressions will be shown as well. Please drop in and pay us a visit.This will also be open over the weekend for you to visit as part of the Festival.

Lune Valley Movement Space  http://shapeshift.co.uk/workshops/lunevalley.html
Includes Water Dance 6-10 August
here to edit.

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Find the event here on Facebook to let us know your coming and share it with your friends.
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Raptor Persecution in the Forest of Bowland

Posted on by Backsbottom Farm

The North West Raptor Group are making an appeal to combat the illegal killing of Peregrine Falcons in Lancashire’s Forest of Bowland, situated in the North West of England. Classified as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, it covers 808 square Kilometers of rural Lancashire and North Yorkshire. The Forest of Bowland is internationally important for its upland bird populations and under the Habitats Directive “Bowland Fells” are designated a Special Protection Area for specific birds of prey. The Forest of Bowland may be an SPA, but raptors like Hen Harrier and Peregrine Falcon receive no protection. In 2009 – 25 Peregrine territories in the Forest of Bowland were examined by the NWRG. 17 sites were occupied, 6 nests failed following the loss of eggs, chicks and adult birds. A total of 11 territories produced 24 fledged young. In 2010 the Government’s Wildlife Adviser, Natural England, withdrew Peregrine licenses for use in the Forest of Bowland from members of the NWRG, following the group’s disclosure on social media of wide scale raptor persecution throughout this moorland region, where Red Grouse are shot. Other licenses issued to group members since 1974, covering additional raptor species including Peregrine for areas outside the Forest of Bowland remained unaffected. By 2016, 99% of Bowland Peregrine nesting territories were found abandoned. The loss of an entire regional population of Peregrines (18 pairs) from the Forest of Bowland is unprecedented. To protect these Peregrines, the NWRG need your help to purchase the following urgently needed kit: Go-Pro camera – 2 mountain bikes – radio transceivers & infra-red night vision goggles. Throughout the last 43 years members of the North West Raptor Group have self-funded their work. If the killing of Peregrines continues, they will be lost forever, not only from the Forest of Bowland but also from the rest of England’s northern uplands, where Red Grouse are shot for sport. Read Latest Update