In the mid 1970s two events led me to get to know the Yorkshire Dales
better than I had previously. Since 1964 I had been to the Malham Tarn
Field Centre with groups of students, first from the University of
Edinburgh and then from the University of York, and my family very much
enjoyed the summer days we spent amid this magnificent hill scenery. In
1976, the British Ecological Society and the National Trust jointly
worked on a survey of the biological interest of the National Trust
properties of the Kent, East Anglian and Yorkshire Regions. Malham Tarn
itself, and the surrounding farms, formed one of the twenty properties
of the Yorkshire Region. I spent the bank holiday, that commemorated the
Queen's Silver Jubilee, at Malham, looking fairly closely at the
National Trust's landholding there. Miss Sarah Priest, who also looked
at the National Trust properties, and I produced a report in late 1977,
attempting both to describe and to evaluate the nature resources of the
National Trust in Yorkshire. In the following year, 1978, the Nature
Conservancy Council wanted to survey the whole of the upland area that
was known as the Malhaml Arncliffe SSSI (Site of Special Scientific
Interest). A contract to look at such an exciting area, considering
where boundaries should go, and looking to see if there were important
areas of habitat that should be brought within the SSSI, was a superb
practical antidote to an office in the University.