It has begun to feel autumnal here. Today, this tree-lined footpath was strewn with fallen leaves, shed during the heatwave, but enlivened by a blaze of end-of-summer wild flowers: purple willowherb and knapweed; yellow loosestrife, tansy and ragwort; pink umbels of angelica.
The plant we had come to look for – broad-leaved helleborine, with its demure greenish-purple flowers – might be more subdued, but it has an intoxicating sex life. Epipactis helleborine likes edges and verges, embankments and cuttings. This disused railway line, linking former pit villages, is all edges. It skirts woods and old quarries, sheep pastures and meadows where curlews nest, snaking downhill from Stanley Crook towards Esh Winning.
