Our cultural heritage trainee, Rebekah Booth, has been leading small-scale heritage feature surveys across several villages in the Westmorland Dales area. So far, volunteers and our apprentice team have surveyed Newbiggin-on-Lune, Ravenstonedale, Tebay, Maulds Meaburn, Crosby Ravensworth and Crosby Garrett. In August the final surveys will be undertaken in Great Asby and Orton.

They have been surveying small human-made features around the village core, which include things like letter boxes, (milk) churn stands, stiles, and (lots of) gate stoops. Preliminary results (not including Crosby Garrett) show that 385 features have been recorded. Of these, 69% are in ‘Good’ condition, 24% in ‘Fair’ condition and 7% in ‘Poor’ condition. Gate Stoops make up 35% of features, of which 65% are pairs and 35% are single stoops. Stiles are the next most common feature making up 11% of all features, of these 52% are step stiles and 42% are squeeze stiles.

So far, this project has been a great way of finding out more about all the villages in the scheme area, and about what gives each its ‘sense of place’. The majority of volunteers have been locals, and it is always special when a feature is first noticed by them, after walking past it for years. All the surveys will be written up over the autumn and the results made available online.