A botanist who has spent decades battling to preserve one of the North’s most special landscapes is about to become one of the oldest first-time published authors – at the age of 97.
Dr Margaret Bradshaw has worked ceaselessly to raise awareness of the range of rare plants found in Teesdale in County Durham. Her efforts included, at the age of 95, an 88km fund-raising trek on horseback to raise thousands of pounds to finance surveys of the plants and their locations.
Now her book Teesdale’s Special Flora: Places, Plants and People, will be released on February 28 by Princeton University Press.
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In 2017, she set up the Teesdale Special Flora Research and Conservation Trust to carry forward the work of preserving, surveying and raising awareness of, the plant communities. She also continues to travel by horseback on fellside surveys.
The publisher says: “To anyone who loves the wild flowers of Britain and Ireland, there are some places that beckon time and again. Upper Teesdale in England’s County Durham must be included among these jewels of our botanical heritage.
“This locality, which is within sight of the highest point of the Pennines, has an outstanding and special flora that has been shaped by its altitude, land-use patterns and diverse geology. Upper Teesdale is a hotspot for botanists. It is also a scenically beautiful area, located within easy reach of the heartlands of the North East, and is much visited by walkers and tourists. This book offers visitors unique insights about this area and its botanical riches.”
Dr Bradshaw, who lives in Eggleston, near Barnard Castle, comes from a farming family. After graduating from university in zoology and botany, she taught at a school in Bishop Auckland and later completed a PhD at Durham University. She continued at Durham University from 1962 to 1983, teaching botany and environmental science in the Department of Extra-Mural Studies.
Upper Teesdale is considered one of the top botanical areas in Britain due to its large number of rare plant species. This unusual combination of northern and southern species growing together occurs nowhere else in Britain. The Teesdale Assemblage of rare plants is considered to have survived continuously since after the last Ice Age 10-12,000 years ago.
The plants include spring gentian, Alpine rush, Alpine cinquefoil, and Teesdale Violet.
In the late 1950s, Dr Bradshaw was part of the Teesdale Defence Committee which fought plans to build Cow Green reservoir. The scheme went ahead and submerged land on which the plants grew.
Spurred on by the development of Cow Green, Dr Bradshaw conducted surveys of the important Widdybank Fell between 1968 and 1975. When Widdybank Fell was resurveyed more recently, 18 of the 19 species surveyed had declined in population extent.
The average decline was 54%, meaning they are now present in fewer than half of the areas they occurred in 45 or so years ago. A total of 28 species were threatened with extinction.
Dr Bradshaw has described Upper Teesdale as a “treasure house” of rare plants”. She said: “In 2017, conscious that rare species were declining and frustrated by lack of effective action on their conservation, I founded the Upper Teesdale Special Flora Research and Conservation Trust.”
In 2015, nearing her 90th birthday, Dr Bradshaw completed the Great North Run, raising over £6,000 for Teesdale and Weardale Search and Mountain Rescue Team which she helped found, and Upper Teesdale Agricultural Support Services.
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