Childhood memories of Hodbarrow, Cumbria
Growing up in a coastal iron-mining village in mountainous Cumbria provided endless opportunities for adventure.
My closest friends and I knew the surrounding countryside intimately. We recognised plants, trees, insects, fungi and berries. We knew where to fish, how to catch rabbits, how to build hides and light fires, and which places offered the best opportunities for exploration.
Naturally, some of our favourite places were those we had been specifically told not to enter.
One such place was known locally as The Hollow, a vast area of sunken ground associated with the Hodbarrow iron-ore mines near Millom. Mining had taken place beneath sea level, and the landscape bore the unmistakable marks of generations of industrial activity.
For us young ragamuffins, The Hollow was an irresistible playground.
There were grasses, rabbits seemingly everywhere, and always the possibility of discovering something unusual.
However on one particular occasion, we discovered something very special.
A bee orchid.
We knew enough about the natural world to recognise how unusual it was. And, despite our willingness to disregard most warnings about where we should and shouldn’t go, we also knew that this was something precious.
My mother’s words came back to me immediately.
Look, but don’t touch.
For once, we simply sat and stared.
The Bee Orchid at The Hollow
(Written in 2023)
Red soil, green grasses spent iron ore mines below filled with seawater A sunken hollow too many rabbits to count there, the bee orchid Sit and stare, don’t touch Mother’s words freeze us in place we have found the orchid
A landscape transformed
The Hollow was the name villagers gave to this remarkable area of subsided ground within the Hodbarrow mining landscape.
Today, much of that former industrial landscape has been transformed by flooding. The area is associated with Port Haverigg Marina, where water-based recreation has replaced the mining activity that once shaped the lives of the local community.
Therefore it is difficult to reconcile the place I knew as a boy with the landscape visitors encounter today.
Yet the memory of that small flower remains remarkably clear.
Many years later, while reading Norman Nicholson’s poem Bee Orchid at Hodbarrow, I was transported straight back to that childhood discovery.
Nicholson, who lived in nearby Millom, understood perhaps better than anyone how the natural world and industrial history were woven together in this corner of Cumbria.
His poetry often found beauty in places that others might have dismissed as scarred by industry.
Reading his words reminded me of a group of adventurous boys, surrounded by the remains of iron mining, suddenly captivated by a single flower.
We had gone looking for adventure.
Instead, we found something worth sitting still for.
Inspired in part by Norman Nicholson’s poem “Bee Orchid at Hodbarrow”. Further information about the poet and his work can be found at the Norman Nicholson Society.