Volunteers work to reopen land that inspired poet

A group of volunteers will pay tribute to one of the country’s most beloved nature poets with a project to reclaim habitats and open up land corridors.

The 19th-century nature poet John Clare grew up in Helpston, Cambridgeshire, then part of Northamptonshire, and wrote about the loss of the landscape he loved as a child.

The John Clare Countryside project, led by the Langdyke Countryside Trust, will link Peterborough to Stamford in Lincolnshire, through green corridors of farmland.

Richard Astle, chairman of the Trust, said: “It would be wonderful to create some of John Clare’s lost habitats in his honour and memory.”

Group of volunteers in black t-shirts digging in a field — Volunteers hope to ‘double nature’ – where agriculture and nature co-exist – in 21 parishes in the John Clare Countryside area (Emma Baugh/BBC)

The John Clare Countryside is an area of 30,000 acres (121 km²) straddling Peterborough and the Lincolnshire border.

The project aims to ‘double nature’ across 21 parishes in the region, bringing back lost habitats – including wetlands and forests – and seeing farmland and nature thrive side by side.

At Tween Town, a five-acre (20,200 m) site near Peterborough, work has begun on a tree nursery and wildflower meadow.

The area covered by John Clare Countryside extends from Peterborough to Stamford in Lincolnshire — The area covered by John Clare Countryside stretches from Peterborough to Stamford in Lincolnshire (Emma Baugh/BBC)

Langdyke Countryside Trust volunteer Michael Horne said the team had created “pockets” to find homes for native wildlife.

“Nature is in a difficult situation right now, it’s been going on for a long time now,” he said.

“If we can find opportunities that allow us to go back a little bit and make things better for nature and people’s enjoyment, that’s really important.”

Black and white image of peasant poet, John Clare — The ‘peasant poet of Northamptonshire’, whose writing was as famous as his life was humble (Getty Images/Hulton Archive)

Known as the peasant poet, John Clare was a field worker as a teenager and his first collection of poetry was published in 1820, entitled ‘Poets Descriptive of Rural Life and Scenery’.

When Clare was 16, the Enclosure Act was passed for Helpston, which saw common land privatised and fenced off, trees felled and residents barred from access.

Anyone trespassing would be prosecuted and Clare believed this notion affected not only people but also local wildlife.

Speaking to the BBC in 2017, Sir Jonathan Bate, former provost of Worcester College, Oxford University, said Clare had seen the landscape transformed after the law was passed and feared her childhood would be lost.

Richard Astle stood in a field wearing a navy blue polo shirt — Richard Astle explains that the project aims to see nature and agriculture ‘thriving’ together (Emma Baugh/BBC)

Mr Astle hopes the work will pay tribute to John Clare, the country’s greatest nature poet.

“He wrote about a time of great change in the countryside, very similar to what we are seeing now,” he said.

“It would be wonderful to create some of John Clare’s lost habitats in his honour and memory.

“He was very concerned about people losing access to common land because of fencing. He could no longer walk in the countryside as he used to and he saw nature in danger.”

Mr Astle called for more volunteers to get involved and said Clare himself would have been “a happy patron of our work”.

A statue of John Clare stands in Northampton town centre, where he spent his final years in an asylum — A statue of John Clare stands in Northampton town centre. The poet grew up in Helpston, now in Cambridgeshire (Pete Cooper/BBC)

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Volunteers work to reopen land that inspired poet

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