In the Lake District’s Borrowdale Valley, farmers – and Melvyn Bragg – are pitted against the country’s guardian of natural treasures
Deep in the Borrowdale valley, where England is observed in its finest garments, there is ferment in the fields and on the hillsides. The gnarled farming communities who toil with their sheep on these lakeland slopes have prevailed in the face of Vikings, Normans and rampaging Scots for thousands of years and have learned to harness tempests. Now they believe they are in a mortal struggle with what they regard as a more implacable enemy: the National Trust.
The trust, guardian of England’s natural treasures, is one of the biggest landlords in this part of the Lake District. Of the dozen or so farms scattered in these parts, only three are not owned by the NT. That number is now down to two, following the trust’s £950,000 purchase of the land around the historic Thorneythwaite farm.
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Source: Guardian Environment