Records of the Moor House National Nature Reserve

The collection consists of a set of the official records of the Moor House National Nature Reserve, mainly consisting of reports and detailed datasets arising from experiments and surveys conducted at the site between 1951 and 1980. The data varies between fairly summary accounts and notes to extensive reports with survey records, statistics, maps, charts and large black & white photographs.

The establishment of controlled areas in Britain in which indigenous plants and animals could be preserved for study dates back to the founding of the Nature Conservancy by the government after the Second World War. It was not, however, until the acquisition of the Moor House area in 1951 that the British National Nature Reserves included any area of upland moors with blanket-peat cover and a variety of habitats and vegetation types associated with open fell and mountain tops. A field station was established at Moor House in 1952, supported by a base at Merlewood Research Station (Grange over Sands, Cumbria), and substantial input to the systematic experimental field work at Moor House was made by geologists, botanists, zoologists, and other researchers from the University of Durham, as well as those visiting from other Universities.

Open for consultation.

Presented by John Adamson, via Dr. Jeff Warburton, Dept of Geography, University of Durham (Misc. 2001/2002:83).

Catalogue

Permission to make any published use of material from the collection must be sought in advance from the Sub-Librarian, Special Collections (e-mail PG.Library@durham.ac.uk) and, where appropriate, from the copyright owner. The Library will assist where possible with identifying copyright owners, but responsibility for ensuring copyright clearance rests with the user of the material.

A Moor House pioneer (an account of the role of Gordon Manley in establishing the field station) http://www.ecn.ac.uk/ecnnews/ecnnews6/ecnews67.html