River sharing circle 13 August 2017 -Header photo
Events
River Music evening accompanied with slides showing the history and the future potential of the River Roeburn at Wray Institute Sun 20 May 7pm 2018.
with Spontaneous Community Ensemble. A string duet with brilliant musicians Lawrence Woof and Robin Moody.
Farmers film evening Tues 13 Feb 2018 7.00pm Wray Institute.
This evening showed the Feature film High Water - Common Ground. This toured around successful Natural Flood Management projects throughout the UK - showing the community approach and farmers engagement to slowing the flow of rivers (65 mins). Then it was followed by our film Remembering and Restoring the River Roeburn (28 mins).
A lively discussion followed around the possible implementation and grants to carry out similar work in the catchments of the River Roeburn, Hindburn and the Wenning including Countryside Stewardship and the Water Environment Grant.
River Music evening accompanied with slides showing the history and the future potential of the River Roeburn at Wray Institute Sun 20 May 7pm 2018.
with Spontaneous Community Ensemble. A string duet with brilliant musicians Lawrence Woof and Robin Moody.
Farmers film evening Tues 13 Feb 2018 7.00pm Wray Institute.
This evening showed the Feature film High Water - Common Ground. This toured around successful Natural Flood Management projects throughout the UK - showing the community approach and farmers engagement to slowing the flow of rivers (65 mins). Then it was followed by our film Remembering and Restoring the River Roeburn (28 mins).
A lively discussion followed around the possible implementation and grants to carry out similar work in the catchments of the River Roeburn, Hindburn and the Wenning including Countryside Stewardship and the Water Environment Grant.
Farmers workshop - Natural flood Management 19 Oct 2017
Natural Flood Management Farmers meeting on 19th October 2017 visiting the slow the flow demonstration on Backsbottom Farm to see check dams, swales and blanket bog restoration and discuss mob grazing and keyline subsoiling. Early in the day we had brief presentations from Lune Rivers Trust, Environment Agency, Natural England and the Abbeystead estate. A morning of lively discussion with 20 participants. Thanks to Sandra Silk from the Forest of Bowland AONB for organising this.
River Roeburn
Remembering and Restoring Festival
Sat 12th -Sun 13th August 2017
We had a wonderful weekend with over 150 visitors.
Many thanks for all the volunteer help, musicians singers and everyone who contributed to its success
This Free Festival celebrated and remembered 50 years since the Wray flood on 8th August 1967
and helped to engage the local community and general public about the issues around flooding and water management.
River Roeburn
Remembering and Restoring Festival
Sat 12th -Sun 13th August 2017
We had a wonderful weekend with over 150 visitors.
Many thanks for all the volunteer help, musicians singers and everyone who contributed to its success
This Free Festival celebrated and remembered 50 years since the Wray flood on 8th August 1967
and helped to engage the local community and general public about the issues around flooding and water management.
Natural Land sculpture workshops.
"Resident environmental artists Richard Shilling and Julia Chick regularly make natural art sculptures from materials gathered near the river. Learn how to make natural sculptures yourself and send some quality time next to the enigmatic River Roeburn. For future workshops see Richard Shilling Blog
"Resident environmental artists Richard Shilling and Julia Chick regularly make natural art sculptures from materials gathered near the river. Learn how to make natural sculptures yourself and send some quality time next to the enigmatic River Roeburn. For future workshops see Richard Shilling Blog
Richard Shilling Land Art 'Maelstrom'Made at Middlewood, Roeburndale, Lancashire on 2nd September 2016.
It's been one of those days. Not one where Pink Floyd cut me into litle pieces but one of shared ideas and new projects.
As I drifted in and out of sleep early this morning I had a semi-lucid dream which repeated three times. With closed eyes I willed myself to see a tunnel and as I did so it twisted into a vortex and as my body followed it, it became the outside world that spun and the vortex that was still. My attention fluctuated between wakefulness and REM sleep and I conjured up the tunnel vortex another two times. Aware that I was willing it to happen but not aware that I was dreaming it until I was fully awake.
The last time I had visited the Fairy Pool at Middlewood was before the winter floods. Last autumn it looked like it had done for the previous 5 or 6 years I had visited it but now it was transformed.
All my recent visits to Middlewood had all been to other places but today I wanted to go there spurred on by thoughts of vortices, whirlpools and maelstroms.
I had always found it an intense place to work, such a lot of movement and sound, the white noise of the rushing river seemingly dancing with hidden voices and shouts. If ever a place was a vortex this was it. Instilling a feeling of taut excitement inside but one that draws energy from you and within which you can only spend so long.
And now through its transformation it combined both the familiar and the intensely new. Slabs of rock unmoved and in place and the same life blood of movement and rushing water. And yet the banks had been gouged leaving massed tendrils of tree roots squirming on the sand and piles of river stones exposed beneath trees of fifty years age and more.
A large spur sat in the middle and when stood on it I could see the majesty of the river much wider than it had been before. All its power and presence was writ large, sculpting for eternity through the wooded gorge.
Where the two tributaries joined at the end of the spur great gluts of foam, like king-size whirling souffles danced around the whirlpool, never escaping but sometimes joining hands in a threesome and twirling round and around. During our visit there they'd grown from loaf size to car wheel size but continued their merry dance in the whirlpool for all those hours we'd witnessed them.
An emotional place felt even more so when the combination of the majesty of mother nature combined with the power of somewhere you knew, that you had communed with many times before and yet everything was changed.
Head spinning, water spinning, everything in a circle. Caught in a maelstrom and spat out.
I didn't have lots of time to make this so kept it simple but the moments spent stretch out to fill the gaps all the same.
Half way through its creation I had a deeply spiritual experience, another vision deep inside my mind. An apparition of Pete Burns stood there in front of me and the words 'You spin me round round, baby right round' whirled around the ether. Once made real they would not shift from my consciousness, not until I was away from the Maelstrom and walking back along the path.
My vision for the sculpture was much more turbulent but it emerged calmer and succinct. Definitely one of those days.
Lune Valley Voices N'Dodo
It's been one of those days. Not one where Pink Floyd cut me into litle pieces but one of shared ideas and new projects.
As I drifted in and out of sleep early this morning I had a semi-lucid dream which repeated three times. With closed eyes I willed myself to see a tunnel and as I did so it twisted into a vortex and as my body followed it, it became the outside world that spun and the vortex that was still. My attention fluctuated between wakefulness and REM sleep and I conjured up the tunnel vortex another two times. Aware that I was willing it to happen but not aware that I was dreaming it until I was fully awake.
The last time I had visited the Fairy Pool at Middlewood was before the winter floods. Last autumn it looked like it had done for the previous 5 or 6 years I had visited it but now it was transformed.
All my recent visits to Middlewood had all been to other places but today I wanted to go there spurred on by thoughts of vortices, whirlpools and maelstroms.
I had always found it an intense place to work, such a lot of movement and sound, the white noise of the rushing river seemingly dancing with hidden voices and shouts. If ever a place was a vortex this was it. Instilling a feeling of taut excitement inside but one that draws energy from you and within which you can only spend so long.
And now through its transformation it combined both the familiar and the intensely new. Slabs of rock unmoved and in place and the same life blood of movement and rushing water. And yet the banks had been gouged leaving massed tendrils of tree roots squirming on the sand and piles of river stones exposed beneath trees of fifty years age and more.
A large spur sat in the middle and when stood on it I could see the majesty of the river much wider than it had been before. All its power and presence was writ large, sculpting for eternity through the wooded gorge.
Where the two tributaries joined at the end of the spur great gluts of foam, like king-size whirling souffles danced around the whirlpool, never escaping but sometimes joining hands in a threesome and twirling round and around. During our visit there they'd grown from loaf size to car wheel size but continued their merry dance in the whirlpool for all those hours we'd witnessed them.
An emotional place felt even more so when the combination of the majesty of mother nature combined with the power of somewhere you knew, that you had communed with many times before and yet everything was changed.
Head spinning, water spinning, everything in a circle. Caught in a maelstrom and spat out.
I didn't have lots of time to make this so kept it simple but the moments spent stretch out to fill the gaps all the same.
Half way through its creation I had a deeply spiritual experience, another vision deep inside my mind. An apparition of Pete Burns stood there in front of me and the words 'You spin me round round, baby right round' whirled around the ether. Once made real they would not shift from my consciousness, not until I was away from the Maelstrom and walking back along the path.
My vision for the sculpture was much more turbulent but it emerged calmer and succinct. Definitely one of those days.
Lune Valley Voices N'Dodo
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River Poetry
Ode to the Roeburn
Your pleasant glades and babbling course helped shape my early life
Our courses set without regret seeing turbulence and strife
You calmly flow but most don’t know the gift that you have been
With twists and turns forgotten like the things that we have seen
Your harnessed strength brought riches once along your flowing course
But in just one day unfettered you showed your might and force
We all forgive what you once did as you raged without control
But will you forgive what we do now as we erode your very soul
I hoped one day I would return to see you again old friend
Your sustenance to life around I thought could never end
With grateful thanks for rewards bestowed to generations gone by
Let the children now protect you and never let you die.
Robert W Marshall
Childhood resident of Wray
River Song
I see tree
and sky and me
reflected in you.
I dance with the exuberant dance
of your water flowing,
on and on
over rocks and stones and
fallen branches.
You make eddies,
waterfalls, pools
and you
carry on singing
the never ending song of your life.
Bryony Rodgers
