Colliery to a mine of natural delights
RESERVE RUN BY VILLAGE IN THE RUNNING FOR NATIONAL BBC AWARD
AFTER a colliery closed in 1966, the healing hand of nature gradually began to turn the site green again.
Almost 20 years later, villagers fought plans for proposed uses for the land and campaigned for it to be declared a nature reserve.
Now Clara Vale Nature Reserve near Crawcrook in Gateshead has been shortlisted in the BBC Countryfile Magazine awards 2018.
Countryfile Magazine judge Phoebe Smith says: “It’s a very small site that was saved by the local community rallying together to save it from being developed. It shows the dedication from the community and how you can be small and still effective.”
People can vote for Clara Vale in the Nature Reserve of the Year category until March 5. Go to www.countryfile. com/bbc-countryfile-magazineawards-2018.
It is up against reserves from Somerset, Dorset, South Uist in Scotland and Leeds.
Clara Vale Local Nature Reserve, close to the Tyne although separated from it by the Newcastle-Carlisle railway, covers 7.5 acres.
Downriver from Wylam, it is managed by the volunteers of the Clara Vale Conservation Group, which has a 30-year lease from Gateshead Council.
More than 200 plant species have now been identified on what was once the site of Clara Valle Colliery, which employed 1,100 workers, while two hides have been built for visitors to watch the abundant bird life. The reserve features: Woodland, including sycamores up to 150 years old which survived the development of the colliery, plus more recent plantings of yew, ash, and oak;
Scrub areas consisting of bramble, gorse and tall grasses to offer shelter for small animals and birds;
A pond, roughly in the centre of the reserve, with a footbridge and streams, were created by the volunteers by partially damming the flow from a nearby spring which once served an old corn mill on the riverside. There are two further ponds in the bird sanctuary;
A wildflower meadow, grassland and a paddock area for use in winter when grazing animals are on site
A community orchard, which was established in 2000 as a Millennium project. Each tree has a numbered post, linking it to a house in the village whose occupants rent it as a way of raising funds. Over half the households in the village have adopted at least one tree.
Every resident of Clara Vale automatically becomes a member of the conservation group, and can decide whether or not to take an active role.
“Local people fought to save the site, and now they use what is a mosaic of habitats for walking, using the hides to watch wildlife, a place to take their children, and for summer events like picnics,” says group chairperson Don Atkinson.
“We are honoured to have been shortlisted. I think we are representative of a lot of small sites and groups across the country, which make a great contribution to nature conservation.” The Clara Vale community clustered around the pit, which opened in 1893. It was named after Clara, the wife of colliery owner John Simpson, of Bradley Hall. Production increased from 300 tons per day in 1894 to 500 tons in 1930, by which time around 130 homes had been built at Clara Vale.
The hub of the mine, the Pit Yard, had two pitheads, buildings housing heavy engineering, a 120ft chimney and an overhead bucket line carrying coal to the nearby railway. At its peak in 1948, Clara Vale pit produced 197,000 tons of coal.
After the pit closed, Clara Vale was declared a Category D village. The classification meant that it was felt there was no way of sustaining such former pit villages and they were to be left to fade away without economic assistance.
But at Clara Vale, ex-mineworkers wanted to stay and new residents were attracted to the village by its rural loca-
Local people fought to save the site, and now they use what is a mosaic of habitats for walking and watching wildlife
tion, yet within reach of city jobs and amenities.
By the 1980s the pit heads and most of the industrial buildings were gone and nature was taking over. Gateshead Council proposed that the site should be reclaimed for “agricultural purposes” and a firm also submitted a planning application to use the land for recycling used timber.
Villagers formed the Pit Yard Action Group to fight the proposals. The recycling application went to appeal and was rejected, and the Clara Vale Conservation Group was formed in 1984 to fight the agricultural proposal and establish the land as a nature reserve.
A public inquiry backed the nature reserve proposal and also recommended that the whole village, including the adjacent wood, should become a conservation area on the grounds that it was one of the few colliery villages in the old Durham coalfield to retain most of its original layout, and which had not expanded or been swallowed up by surrounding development.
The site was officially granted Local Nature Reserve status in 1995.
Northumberland is also shortlisted in the National Park of the Year awards, along with the New Forest, The Broads, Exmoor and Snowdonia.
High Force waterfall in Teesdale is on the shortlist in the landmark of the year category.
Nominations in the Country Book of the Year section include artist Andy Beck, from Bowes, County Durham.
His book The Wainwrights in Colour is inspired by Alfred Wainwright and his seven pictorial walking guides.