The Battle of Brambles: Managing Little Dale’s Wild Side

The gorse, in its garish yellow splendour, provides the only relief to Little Dale’s dreary winter vista—a scene as lively as a crypt. One marvels that the National Trust, using funds from the estimable Enterprise Neptune scheme, thought it prudent to acquire this rather unremarkable hollow near Saltburn-by-the-Sea from Brough House Farm in 1997. The Cleveland Way, that celebrated long-distance footpath, runs close by, though few hikers would notice, hidden as it is behind an oppressive wall of gorse, bramble, and blackthorn—a veritable fortress of prickles designed to keep all but the hardiest intruders at bay.

Remarkably, this prickly patch harbours a “thriving colony” of Common Blue butterflies, flitting about on the patches of grassland, while Warblers are reported to have nested here. Management is committed to the herculean task of hacking back the gorse, brambles, and blackthorn, with a view to encouraging a few more grass blades to rise up in solemn defiance.

Common gorse, for its part, produces these lurid yellow blooms through most of the year, with a faint whiff of coconut thrown in, as though trying its best to play the tropical flower in these northern climes. Eventually, the plant produces brown pods which, come the heat, burst with all the excitement of an exploding matchbox, scattering seeds about with reckless abandon. These seeds can remain viable for decades, lying in wait for another chance to brighten the gloom of Little Dale.