Clive Chatters explores the Kidderminster heaths of the West Midlands, describing their history and rich variety of plant and invertebrate life.
Around 1540 the antiquarian John Leland rode from Kidderminster to Bewdley by way of a ‘fayre down, but somewhat barren’. This is the earliest description we have of a heathland landscape that occupied the eastern flanks of the River Severn and stretched from Kinver Edge, in Staffordshire, to Hartlebury Common, in Worcestershire.