My route along Teesdale is full of distractions. I stop twice, awed by the sight of 30 black grouse in a field, then to watch displaying peewits, tumbling and diving with sweet, airy calls. This is the heart of the North Pennines national landscape (NPNL), and its visitor centre at Bowlees is in a 19th-century Methodist chapel. The Bow Lee beck runs close by, winding through a wooded dene, then dropping down Summerhill Force, the pretty waterfall camouflaging Gibson’s Cave.
A small limestone quarry by the beck resounds to the cascading songs of chaffinches, spring warmth held within its rocky bowl. The ledges of these cliffs, inaccessible to sheep and rabbits, have been chosen for the planting of a rare native tree, the rock whitebeam, Sorbus rupicola. Seed was collected in autumn 2022 from a craggy site by the fast-flowing Tees, carefully packed, and sent to the Millennium Seed Bank managed by Kew Gardens. Further seed was germinated in the small wildflower nursery at Bowlees so that rock whitebeam could be re-established in Teesdale.
