Stand at the trig point on Pendle Hill, as I’ve often done, and you’re looking across a windswept landscape that feels timeless: close-cropped turf, rolling pastures, the occasional steep sided brook interspersed with patches of bare black peat, falling away from you in all directions and sometimes rarely your view is accompanied by the mournful call of the curlew.
Pendle Hill – shaped by centuries of hooves treading over it
However, in truth what you’re witnessing is almost entirely manufactured: created by centuries of intense sheep grazing, felling, burning and drainage activities that have all but erased Pendle Hill’s original tapestry of wet heath, scrub and upland woodland, replacing it with an artificial upland lawn of grass, rush and bare peat.
This local picture sits inside a wider crisis – Natural England notes that the North West’s natural environment is already “much less rich than 50 years ago and remains under pressure” , while nationally the UK retains only 53% of its original nature, placing us 189th out of 240 countries and territories on the Natural History Museum’s Biodiversity Intactness Index. Meaning Pendle Hill sits among one of the most nature-depleted nations on Earth.
Natural England’s blanket bog evidence review lists over-grazing alongside drainage as one of the main drivers of peatland degradation in England’s uplands.
Sheep, when grazing, strip away peat-forming mosses, create bare patches that erode, compact the soil so water runs off faster, and create landscapes that favour tough, unpalatable grasses at the expense of heather, sedges, flowers and tree saplings.
What the pollen record tells us
Heavy grazing has tipped Pendle’s blanket peat and wet heath into a species poor monoculture dominated by purple moor-grass (Molinia caerulea). Scientists describe Molinia’s upland expansion as “a major threat to diversity” on UK bogs. The grass out competes peat-building mosses, leaves bare peat between tussocks and is very prone to wild fires when dry – exactly the conditions we now see on Pendle’s plateau. Conditions are only being made worse through climate change.
Pollen profiles from the Forest of Bowland show that, before large-scale clearances and stock introduction, the slopes around Pendle carried substantial native woodland and scrub, with active blanket bog only on the very wettest tops. Charcoal spikes in their surveys coincided with Iron Age and medieval clearances where, in these periods, tree pollen counts collapsed and grass, heather and Sphagnum rose. In other words, the ‘open’ hill we know today is a cultural artefact, not a natural baseline.
Sheep out, life in
What happens when the pressure of intensive sheep grazing is removed? Long-term exclusion work (keeping sheep out of an area) at Moor House National Nature Reserve shows that once sheep are excluded, species richness and structural diversity begin to recover within a decade.. A 2025 Yorkshire Dales trial recorded year-on-year increases in natural tree colonisation after switching from sheep to low-density cattle.
Other rewilding projects nearby also show the benefits to the natural landscape. Wild Ennerdale has reduced grazing for 20 years and now boasts self-seeded Oak, Rowan and Alder along its becks, plus a measurable flattening of flood peaks in storm events. On the limestone of Wild Ingleborough, partners have removed sheep from the moor tops and are watching Juniper and Downy Birch creep uphill unaided.
Pendle is already healing – where grazers can’t reach
Local organisations are showing what’s possible. The Pendle Hill Landscape Partnership reshaped eroding gully sides, blocked grips and seeded Sphagnum across 18ha of bare peat on the summit. The Ribble Rivers Trust is restoring peat gullies that feed Mearley Brook, protecting Clitheroe’s water. But volunteer planted moss plugs struggle when a hungry ewe soon nips them off.
Healthy peatlands lock up carbon, filter drinking water and slow flood water. A 2019 study found revegetated blanket bogs cut peak storm flows by 27% and doubled lag times downstream. Yet Pendle’s future could be richer still: a mosaic of wetter bog, rough grassland, willow carr, thorny scrub and scrambling native woodland – habitat for curlew, short-eared owl, hares and a haven for our much depleted insect population.
Who pays? We already do
At present, the public is effectively subsidising free forage on access land and foots the bill for habitat loss, the ever increasing spread of Molina grass, water treatment, and flood damage.
However, new schemes such as the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI26), which replaced the Environmental Land Management grants, pays for “public goods” such as peat restoration and low or no grazing options on common land.
Additional grants flow through Farming in Protected Landscapes, covering Pendle’s share of the Forest of Bowland National Landscape. Commons graziers therefore have a funded, negotiated route to step back without being out of pocket.
The Sustainable Farming Incentive 2026 (SFI26) can help reduce sheep grazing and support habitat restoration on Pendle Hill through specific moorland and upland actions that pay farmers to lower livestock density and remove stock seasonally.
Key SFI26 actions for upland restoration
- UPL2 (Low Livestock Grazing on Moorland): Limits grazing to a maximum of 0.08 Grazing Livestock Units (GLU) per hectare, stopping the overgrazing that prevents dwarf shrubs and heather from recovering.
- Seasonal Stock Removal (UPL8 / UPL10): Provides increased payments (e.g., £74/ha for removing stock for 4 months, or £102/ha for 8 months) to take sheep off the hill during sensitive winter periods when selective browsing damages young shoots.
- Cattle and Pony Supplements (UPL5 / UPL6): Encourages heavier, less selective grazers instead of sheep, helping to create structural diversity in the vegetation and break up dense matted grass.
Ecological benefits for Pendle Hill
- Reduced Browsing: Removing sheep for parts of the year allows dwarf shrubs, bilberry, and heather to regenerate.
- Soil Recovery: Lower livestock density reduces soil compaction and bare peat erosion, improving local water quality and natural flood
- Wader Habitats: Less intensive sheep management creates rough grassland structure suited for upland breeding waders.management.
A route to a sheep free future
| Year | Action | Outcome |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Map deep peat, install stockproof exclosures on the summit plateau, and halve stocking rates on the common through SFI contracts. | Immediate respite for the most damaged peat; baseline bird & botanical monitoring begins. |
| 2 | Extend low grazing or no grazing zones to the flanks; re-wet drains; allow natural scrub and tree colonisation. Employ cattle or ponies off commons only where evidence shows biodiversity benefit. | Peat stabilises; Sphagnum and cottongrass spread; first saplings survive a full growing season. |
| 3 | Remove sheep from all of Pendle’s common land; maintain light conservation grazing only on enclosed, lower in-bye parcels. | A self-willed hill top– with water held longer, carbon locked deeper and wildlife returning. |
Lancashire County Council, as commons registration authority, can broker the agreement; the Lancashire Peat Partnership, Pendle based charities and local graziers can deliver on the ground.
A hill for the next century
Pendle’s silhouette won’t change overnight, but step away for a few seasons and you’ll start to notice willow shimmering in cloughs, bilberry greening broken peat, lapwing flashing over rough grass and sphagnum knitting back a living carpet on the summit. A decade on, the hill will hold more carbon and slow more floodwater for the Ribble Valley than any engineering scheme we could buy.
If Scotland’s Flow Country can win UNESCO World Heritage status for its blanket bogs, surely Lancashire can aspire to something equally visionary: a sheep-free, rewilding Pendle Hill. Let’s stop using our iconic summit as a free feedlot and start letting it be wild – messier, wetter, richer and decidedly more alive.
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