The ancient oaks of Padley Gorge, gnarled and twisting out of the moss-grown gritstone rocks, hold many of the secrets of Longshaw within their grasp. For 8000 years people have lived in close association with these trees and the wildlife they support, farming, trading, hunting and quarrying.

Criss-crossed by old trackways and packhorse trails, the Longshaw Estate is a mix of wet pasture and meadow, heather moorland and semi-natural ancient woodland. Its proximity to Sheffield and its wealth of natural resources mean that it has been, over the centuries, a centre for charcoal burning, millstone quarrying and woodland management as well as an important trading route for salt, silk , wool, and lead among other things.

Today the trackways provide solace and refuge for city dwellers escaping the confines and pressures of city life. Just a 10 minute drive from city streets and high rise buildings people can experience the open spaces of the gritstone moors, clean air and sparkling streams and glimpses of wildlife in the heart of quiet woodland gorges.

Longshaw is a haven for woodland wildlife; unusual hairy wood ants build huge dome-shaped nests in the shadows of the woods, nationally important populations of pied flycatchers arrive each spring to rear their young in the ancient oak trees and rare mosses and ferns cling to the rocky waterfalls and springs.

The strange and eerie atmosphere of Bole Hill, cloaked in silver birch, conceals the old quarry workings, now silent, of an industry that provided millions of tons of rock for the nearby Derwent and Howden dams in the early years of the 20th century.

Fifty years previously the woods and moors were the favourite haunt of shooting parties who stayed at the Duke of Rutland's shooting lodge. At this time timber management was also in the ascendant giving rise to the Sheffield Plantation.

©NTPL / Joe Cornish

You have to look harder to find evidence of earlier industry; the quarrying of stone in Yarncliffe for metal working and grinding or the charcoal pits used to provide fuel for lead smelting in Sheffield, hidden in the densest parts of the woodland.

Even further back in time we can only imagine how the Celtic tribes lived here, Bronze Age and Iron Age peoples farming and trading in a thickly wooded landscape.

Today the farming tradition carries on, sheep and cattle grazing the meadows, long since cleared of trees. But future generations will discover new stories about this place as the landscape responds to changes in management practice.

The old woods of Longshaw hold many secrets of the past and the key to the life of the property in the future.

'There'

The river runs strong
amongst the ground rock.
Woodlands and heath
form a backdrop.

This place is sacred
the wind its life breath,
the spirits hide here
without fear of death.

This place is eternal
despite the decay,
though creatures and humans
they will pass away.

(Deborah Barnard - Firth Park School, Sheffield)