Bleak. Grim. Weary. Even those hardened Yorkshire hill-walkers who profess a love for the high country of northern England are sparing in their praise of the moor. Wet and windswept, the ridges and plateaus here are blanketed by a unique biome of indomitable low-growing vegetation and broken by rocky outcrops. Though it may be agreeable on a fine, sunny day, this landscape is at its most elemental, and exerts its strongest impression on the mind, when banks of mist scud up the drainages and bands of rain sweep overhead. Much as a rocky coastline, wave-battered in the havoc of a powerful storm, attracts the intrepid onlooker despite all reason, the bleak spectacle of the moor was born in the mist and becomes only more gripping under the throes of the wind and the clouds. And when the sky breaks, to reveal the raw, forbidding landscape, at once cloud-torn and brilliantly lit, the moor is spectacular.
The disorienting swales and deep bogs of the Yorkshire Moors forms the wild, threatening setting for the novel Wuthering Heights; in this passage, the narrator describes his landlord's residence, 'a perfect misanthrope's heaven' high in the moor:
Wuthering Heights is the name of Mr. Heathcliff's dwelling. 'Wuthering' being a significant provincial adjective, descriptive of the atmospheric tumult to which its station is exposed in stormy weather. Pure, bracing ventilation they must have up there at all times, indeed: one may guess the power of the north wind blowing over the edge, by the excessive slant of a few stunted firs at the end of the house; and by a range of gaunt thorns all stretching their limbs one way, as if craving alms of the sun. Happily, the architect had foresight to build it strong: the narrow windows are deeply set in the wall, and the corners defended with large jutting stones.
-- Emily Bronte, 'Wuthering Heights'
At the least, the moorland deserves our respect for having thwarted human encroachment on such an intensely cultivated island. There is some evidence that these mountains were cleared of timber by Neolitic humans under the influence of the 'new' idea of agriculture. Today, the transition from human landscape into the wild landscape of the moor can be remarkably sharp--usually at a verdant sheep pasture and usually delineated by a stone wall.
Although the dense mosses and peat beds of the moorland have an amazing ability to retain water, the abundant rain that falls here eventually drains down stony waterways. The organic-rich water filtering from the moor is clear but distinctly tobacco-colored, much like the outflow of the Everglades.
A density of low, closely interspersed plants forms the ground surface. Though the tallest resident--a bunch grass or a heather bush--may visually dominate, its base is inevitably crowded by mosses, lichens, and ferns. The following photographs show a few samples of the vegetation:
Because the ground is perpetually saturated, decomposition takes place in an low-oxygen environment: underwater, essentially. As a result, dark beds of carbon-rich peat accumulate, interspersed with skeletal twigs and stems. What's remarkable here, is that the perpetually saturated conditions necessary for the development of peat occur not just in depressions or lowlands, but even on ridgelines and slopes.
In a bushwhack, this deep, elastic column of humic matter, moss, bushes and grass makes for entertaining walking, although the ground-cover can conceal some very wet depressions. In most places, the structure of the vegetation is resistant and springy, like a mattress of firm foam, and keeps your feet from sinking too deeply into the black peat. It's on the trails, where the vegetation and dense root networks have been obliterated by boots, that some really muddy bogs develop, and the trails widen absurdly as walkers seek the stable footing of undisturbed terrain. In areas, the worst sections have been laboriously paved with beautiful, heavy flagstones--some of these spectacular walkways can be spotted in the photos of this post. It's a great feeling to tread a stone highway above what in the past was clearly a terrible bog.
