A study of the land-use changes of the North York Moors

Abstract

The North York Moors form a distinct geographical region covering an area of over six hundred square miles. While the coastal fringe and interior dales have long been farmed there still remains a very large area of high moorland where broad expanses of heather form the most distinctive feature of the landscape. The physical features and the vegetation of the remaining moorland have been described in order to make clear the problems of reclamation and changing land-use. Changes in land-use during nearly nine hundred years have involved both moorland reclamation and changes in the use of existing improved land. The Domesday Survey provides the earliest evidence of land-use, and indeed some changes had already been detailed in the Survey itself. Throughout the medieval period pioneer farming by the monasteries led to very great changes, especially in the use of moorland. During this period too, the creation of the Forest of Pickering in the south-east of the region and the enforcement of Forest Law restricted the extension of farming and some forms of land-use. By the time the monasteries were dissolved in 1536 many of their granges had been enclosed, with some conversion from arable to pasture. Changes of this nature continued slowly during the next two hundred years. 2Parliamentary enclosure in the mid-eighteenth century led to the reclamation of much larger areas of moorland than ever before, until by 1828 the general distribution of moorland and improved farm land was much the same as it is today. During the last century moorland reclamation for farming has proceeded more slowly, but afforestation has been systematically undertaken. On the improved land fluctuations in the proportions under arable and grass have resulted from depressions and wars. The long history of changing land-use shows the change from self-sufficiency to regional specialisation made possible by modern conditions.