| Forest of Bowland | |
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 Ward's Stone, the highest point in the Forest of Bowland
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| Country | England |
| Counties | Lancashire, North Yorkshire |
| Districts | Ribble Valley, Lancaster, Wyre, Craven, Pendle, Preston |
| Location | Northern England |
| Highest point | |
| - location | Ward's Stone |
| - elevation | 561 m (1,841 ft) |
| Founded | 1964 |
 The Forest of Bowland shown (in green) with the district boundaries of Lancashire
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The Forest of Bowland, also known as the Bowland Fells, is an area of barren gritstone fells, deep valleys and peat moorland, mostly in north-east Lancashire, England. A small part lies in North Yorkshire, and much of the area was historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire. It has been designated an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) since 1964, and is used for grouse shooting, walking and cycling, though it is relatively unfrequented by tourists. One of the best known features of the area is Pendle Hill, which is separated from the main part of the Forest of Bowland AONB by the Ribble Valley.
13% of the AONB is designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest for its important areas of heather moorland and blanket bog. The area is nationally and internationally important for its upland bird populations – the hen harrier is the symbol of the AONB. There are over 500 listed buildings and 18 scheduled monuments within the AONB.
The name 'forest' is used in its traditional sense of 'a royal hunting ground', and much of the land still belongs to the British Crown as part of the Duchy of Lancaster. In the past wild boar, deer, wolves, wild cats and game roamed the forest.
Bowland remains as the northwestern remainder of the ancient wilderness that once stretched over a huge part of England, encompassing the Forest of Bowland, Sherwood Forest (Nottinghamshire), the New Forest (Hampshire) and Savernake Forest (Wiltshire). While the Trough of Bowland (the valley and high pass connecting the Wyre (at Marshaw) and Langden Brook and dividing the upland core of Bowland into two main blocks) represents the area, to many, on account of its popularity, it is in fact only a small part of the wider Forest of Bowland area.
The hills on the western side of the Forest of Bowland attract walkers from Lancaster and the surrounding area. Overlooking Lancaster is Clougha Pike, the western-most hill. The hills form a large horseshoe shape with its open end facing west. Clockwise from Lancaster the hills are Clougha Pike (413 m), Grit Fell (468 m), Ward's Stone (561 m), Wolfhole Crag (527 m), White Hill (544 m), Whins Brow (476 m), Totridge (496 m), Parlick (432 m), Fair Snape Fell (510 m), Bleasdale Moor (429 m), and Hawthornthwaite fell (478 m).
The area is home to the geographic centre of Great Britain which is close to the Whitendale Hanging Stones, around 4 miles (6.4 km) north of Dunsop Bridge.
The Forest of Bowland is home to an annual challenge event: The Bowland Challenge where teams of walkers navigate around a series of grid references over a ten hour period. Proceeds of the event go to support Bowland Pennine Mountain Rescue Team. In 2009 the Bowland Challenge will be held on the 17th and 18th July.
Historical background
The Forest and Liberty of Bowland are thought to have been created by William Rufus sometime after Domesday and granted to his vassal Roger de Poitou, possibly to reward Poitou for his role in repelling the invading Scots army of Malcolm III in 1091-2.
The Forest and Liberty appear to have come into the possession of the De Lacys, Lords of Pontefract, by the end of the eleventh century. In 1102, along with the grant of the adjacent fee of Clitheroe and holdings in Hornby and Amounderness, they came to form the basis of what became known as the Honour of Clitheroe.
In 1311, the Honor of Clitheroe was subsumed into the Earldom of Lancaster. Between 1351 and 1661, it was administered as part of the Duchy of Lancaster. In 1661, the twenty-eight manors contained within the former Honor of Clitheroe, including the Forest and Liberty of Bowland, were granted by the Crown to General George Monck as part of the creation of the Dukedom of Albermarle. Monck had been a key figure in the restoration of Charles II.[1] The Lordship of Bowland then descended through the Buccleuch and Towneley families.
Historic Bowland comprised a Royal Forest and a Liberty of nine manors spanning five townships and four parishes and covered an area of almost 300 square miles on the historic borders of Lancashire and Yorkshire. The manors within the Liberty were Slaidburn (Newton-in-Bowland, West Bradford, Grindleton[2]), Knowlmere, Waddington, Easington, Bashall Eaves, Mitton, Withgill (Crook), Leagram and Dunnow (Battersby). Modern-day Bowland Forest is divided in two large administrative townships - Great Bowland (Bowland Forest High and Bowland Forest Low) and Little Bowland (Bowland-with-Leagram) - but the Forest was much more extensive in previous times.
Bowbearers of the Forest of Bowland have been appointed since the twelfth century. A Bowbearer was originally a noble who acted as ceremonial attendant to the Lord of Bowland, latterly the King, by bearing (carrying) his hunting bow, but over the centuries the Bowbearer's role underwent many changes. At an early date, the Bowbearer was a “forester in fee”, holding his own feudal lands within the Forest. The first record of such a Bowbearer, Uchtred de Bolton, dates from sometimes after 1157 (claims for an earlier holder of the office, Edwin, Comes de Bolton, in the late eleventh century cannot be substantiated). At this time, the office covered the Forests of Bowland and Gilsland in Cumberland.[3] The Boltons were Bowbearers across five generations until 1311 when the Forest of Bowland was acquired by Thomas, 2nd Earl of Lancaster as the result of a marriage settlement.
By the late fourteenth century, the Forest of Bowland had become a Royal Forest. While the Bowbearer retained his forest fee well into the sixteenth century, he became subordinate to a Master Forester appointed by the Crown and his responsibilities grew nearer to those of a chief verderer – an unpaid official appointed to protect vert and venison and responsible for supervising and assisting in the enforcement of forest laws.[4] Perhaps the most notorious Bowbearer during this period was Nicholas Tempest, executed at Tyburn in 1537 as one of the northern leaders of the Pilgrimage of Grace, the Catholic uprising against Henry VIII.[5]
By the second half of the seventeenth century, two Bowbearers were being appointed as officers of the Bowland Forest courts.[6] Over the course of the next three decades, as the last remnants of the ancient forest vanished, the office of Bowbearer was reduced to little more than an honorific.[7] The Parker family of Browsholme Hall today claim to be "hereditary Bowbearers of Bowland"[8] but this claim cannot be supported by the historical evidence. While the Parkers certainly served as Bowbearers over a number of generations up until 1858, they were always subject to grants made by the Lord of Bowland and hold no hereditary right.
The Forest of Bowland had its own forest courts – woodmote and swainmote – from early times. These appear to have been abandoned in the 1830s around the time of Peregrine Towneley’s acquisition of the Bowland Forest Estate. The halmote court at Slaidburn was disbanded following the abolition of copyhold by the Law of Property Act in 1922. General forest law in Britain was finally repealed by statute in 1971, more than 900 years after its introduction by the Normans. The original Bowland Forest courts appear to have been held at Hall Hill near Radholme Laund before moving to Whitewell sometime in the fourteenth century.
St Hubert, the patron saint of hunting, is also patron saint of the Forest of Bowland and has a chapel dedicated to him in Dunsop Bridge.[9] This chapel was founded by Richard Eastwood of Thorneyholme, land agent to the Towneley family. Eastwood was the last known Bowbearer of the Forest of Bowland. An acclaimed breeder of racehorses and shorthorn cattle, he died in 1871 and is buried at St Hubert's.
References
- ^ TD Whitaker, "An History of the Original Parish of Whalley and Honor of Clitheroe" (Routledge & Sons: Manchester 1872)
- ^ http://www.grindleton.org
- ^ R Bolton, "Genealogical and Biographical Account of the Family of Bolton in England and America" (John A Gray: New York 1862)
- ^ R Cunliffe Shaw, "The Royal Forest of Lancaster" (Guardian Press: Preston 1956)
- ^ RW Hoyle, "The Piligrimage of Grace and the Politics of the 1530s" (Oxford University Press 2001)
- ^ J Porter, “A Forest in Transition: Bowland 1500-1650”, Transactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, 125: 40-60 (1974)
- ^ M Greenwood, M & C Bolton, "Bolland Forest and the Hodder Valley" (Landy Publishing: Blackpool 2000; orig. pub. 1955)
- ^ http://www.browsholme.co.uk/
- ^ http://www.sthubertsdunsopbridge.co.uk/
External links
- Forest of Bowland official site
- visitLancashire.com - Official Lancashire Tourism information, Walks and Cycle Routes in the Forest of Bowland
- Bowland Pennine Mountain Rescue Team
- Bowland Fell Runners
- Walks and Pubs in the Forest of Bowland
- Photographs of the Forest of Bowland
- Bowland Forest Gliding Club
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