Enjoying the Humberhead Levels - Softcover

Smith, Roly

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1841143995 ISBN 13: 9781841143996

Publisher: Devon Books, 2004

Synopsis

The Humberhead Levels are the low-lying area between Selby and the north bank of the Humber and the Thorne and Hatfield Marshes to the east of Doncaster, including the Isle of Axholme. Often compared with the Somerset Levels of the south west, they occupy the site of the former Lake Humber, which was left behind by Ice Age glaciers. A windswept and largely treeless landscape, it nevertheless has a fascinating history and was the scene in the early seventeenth-century of some of the first major drainage and land reclamation schemes in Britain, executed by the Dutchman Cornelius Vermuyden. Peat has been cut from the Thorne and Hatfield moors since the fourteenth century, but today's large-scale peat extraction for garden use has a limited lifespan. Much of this area is now important for wildlife and forms part of the Humberhead Peatlands National Nature Reserve, and the whole of the area is now subject to the Countryside Agency's 'Value in Wetness' Land Management Initiative. This well-illustrated and fascinating book to a little-known area is published in partnership with the Countryside Agency and other partners in the Value in Wetness initiative.

About this edition

• Publisher: Devon Books
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 1841143995
• ISBN 13: 9781841143996
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 96