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There is something sad and poignant about coming across the ruins of a farmstead or cottage anywhere in the British uplands. Who lived there – when – and what were their lives like?
This is a typical old farm house that would have been lived in 150 years ago - before the massive decline in UK farming from 1870-1940 caused by 'free market' forces.
Here we are going to follow the story about the decline of nearly 50 farmhouses, round Brinscall. It was not just the farm recession that hit these farms, but also the people of Liverpool wanted drinking water - that could be gathered from these hills. See next page for the lost farms of Brinscall..
Any farming is hard, and farming on this land id very hard work and even harder to make a profit We used to farm on land backing on to the fells. Hard work, many quite poor farmers working that land. Yet when we looked up the hills on to the fells which is only used to graze sheep in the summer, we could see derelict buildings that were farms 100 years ago. Those were days when they didn’t have telephones, quad bikes and other modern means to make life more pleasant. With many people ‘wanting to get away’ surely these areas are more habitable than then.
Much of the UK is classed as 'Rough Grazing' Some 4 mil hectares in Scotland are designated as Clas 7 or 6.1 according to the Macauley Land Use Classificatiion The UK provides about the same area of Rogh Grazing as the whole of the rest of Europe (get Stats). Is this because we have that amount of poor land - ori s itbecasue the rest of Europe makes more use of its land?
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