RSPB Dearne Valley Old Moor

RSPB Dearne Valley Old Moor is an 89-hectare (220-acre) wetlands nature reserve in the Dearne Valley near Barnsley, South Yorkshire, run by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB). It lies on the junction of the A633 and A6195 roads and is bordered by the Trans Pennine Trail long-distance path. Following the end of coal mining locally, the Dearne Valley had become a derelict post-industrial area, and the removal of soil to cover an adjacent polluted site enabled the creation of the wetlands at Old Moor. Old Moor is managed to benefit bitterns, breeding waders such as lapwings, redshanks and avocets, and wintering golden plovers. A calling male little bittern was present in the summers of 2015 and 2016. Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council created the reserve, which opened in 1998, but the RSPB took over management of the site in 2003 and developed it further, with funding from several sources including the National Lottery Heritage Fund. The reserve, along with others nearby, forms part of a landscape-scale project to create wildlife habitat in the Dearne Valley. It is an 'Urban Gateway' site with facilities intended to attract visitors, particularly families. In 2018, the reserve had about 100,000 visits. The reserve may benefit in the future from new habitat creation beyond the reserve and improved accessibility, although there is also a potential threat to the reserve from climate change and flooding.

Landscape Most of the Dearne Valley area lies on coal measures comprising Carboniferous sandstone and slate with seams of coal. The valleys contain fertile alluvium deposited by their rivers, and the sandstone forms rolling ridges cut by the broad floodplains. The area has been settled continuously since prehistoric times, with villages developing on the drier sandstone ridges above the flood plain from at least the late Saxon period. Mining is recorded from at least the 13th century, and probably back to Roman Britain, and the area became heavily industrialised in the 18th century with the arrival of the Dearne and Dove Canal. This connected Barnsley to the River Don and beyond, aiding the intensive exploitation of the locality's coal, sandstone and iron ore. Over the next two centuries, especially following the arrival of the railway in 1840, the area became dominated by its heavy industries. The name Old Moor may derive from an archaic meaning of moor, referring to a marshy area that was more difficult to cultivate than the alluvium of the flood plain. It had been enclosed as a 103 hectares (250 acres) farm by 1757, when it was owned by the Marquess of Rockingham.

History

The Dearne Valley was formerly a major coal mining area, with several accessible seams of high-quality coal, and in 1950s more than 32,000 colliers worked in its 30 pits. The coal industry dominated the area, and its waste rendered the River Dearne lifeless, although a few isolated wetland areas remained, monitored by local birdwatchers. The miners' strike of 1984 was the first sign of a national programme of pit closures in the UK that led to all the Dearne Valley mines being closed by 1993, with the loss of 11,000 jobs in the industry. About 600 hectares (1,500 acres) of the former Wath Manvers Colliery, including a coking plant and marshalling yard, was left as the largest derelict site in western Europe. The ground was heavily polluted and needed to be restored by covering it with clean soil deep enough for trees and scrubs to become established. To achieve this, 700,000 tonnes (690,000 long tons) of material was removed from the adjacent Old Moor, thereby creating a new wetland at that site. The Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust (WWT) had originally intended to run the proposed reserve, and planned a large lake for wintering wildfowl. The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) suggested adding reed beds to help the then-struggling bittern population; only 11 males were present in the UK at one point in the 1990s. The WWT was at that time also working on its London Wetland Centre, and pulled out of the Old Moor project since it lacked the resources to cope with two large projects. The creation of the reserve fell to Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council, which offered the site to the RSPB in 1997. At that time, the bird charity was more interested in preserving established habitats than creating new sites, and declined to take on Old Moor. The reserve eventually opened in 1998 as part of the regeneration of the Dearne Valley, and was then developed further with the help of a lottery grant of nearly £800,000 in 2002. By 2000, the reserve had only 10,000 visitors annually, and was making a financial loss before being taken over by the RSPB in 2003. The RSPB had changed it its position since its refusal in 1997, with a greater emphasis nationally on engaging the public, and more opportunities to work with the Environment Agency to create and manage new wetlands. With help from the Environment Agency, local councils and others, the RSPB tripled its land holding in the area to 309 hectares (760 acres) in the next ten years, while other conservation bodies also created and improved reserves. Cooperation between conservation organisations and other agencies led to the formation of the Dearne Valley Landscape Partnership (DVLP) in 2014. This is the main coordinating body for the partners in the Dearne Valley scheme, which include the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), local councils, Natural England, The Environment Agency, the Forestry Commission, Yorkshire Water, the RSPB and several local conservation charities. The DVLP is supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund and its administration is the responsibility of Barnsley Council's Museums and Heritage Service. The partnership's remit includes industrial heritage sites as well as the local environment, and its funding for 2014–2019 was £2.4 million, of which £1.8 million was from the National Lottery. In October 2020, Old Moor was one of the sites from which the BBC Television programme Autumnwatch was broadcast, hosting presenter Gillian Burke.

Access and facilities

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