Dr. M.E. Bradshaw MBE

Shortly after moving to County Durham, Margaret met the renowned botanist Dr. Max Walters, who suggested that she study the Lady’s-mantle Alchemilla vulgaris agg. group of plants, as Upper Teesdale supported more species than any other part of Britain. Margaret began regular field visits to Teesdale and Weardale, cycling and walking for miles studying and mapping the Lady’s-mantles and other rare plants. 

On her first day looking for Lady’s-Mantles in Upper Weardale, she found an enormous population of the rare starry Lady’s-mantle Alchemilla acutiloba growing on the face of the recently constructed dam of Burnhope Reservoir. At the time nobody knew that this species was common in Weardale. In 1951, she was the first person to discover the very rare, large-toothed Lady’s-mantle Alchemilla subcrenata in Britain in fields near Newbiggin in Teesdale

Her work came to national significance in the late 60’s with her involvement in the campaign to save areas supporting significant populations of rare plants from destruction due to the proposed Cow Green Reservoir. Although the campaign did not succeed in stopping the reservoir, the importance of the unique Upper Teesdale flora became more widely understood by botanists in other parts of Britain and by the general public, due largely to Margaret’s efforts. She organised teams of visiting botanists to study and document the rare plants of the sugar limestone habitats on Widdybank Fell in more detail that had ever been done before, or has ever been done since then. The current project is repeating some of this work in similar detail.

Returning to Upper Teesdale in 1998, Margaret resumed the long-term annual plant population studies of several of the rare species at permanently-marked plots on Widdybank and Cronkley Fells that she began in the 1970s. She continues with this research to this day using a horse to make the trek up onto Cronkley Fell these days.

She has trained several volunteers to work with her and carry on with the plant population dynamics work in the future. The data from these detailed studies are now of great significance, clearly demonstrating recent declines in important rare species. It was largely these results that prompted Margaret to set up this project.

On her return to Teesdale she also trained volunteers to help her undertake a comprehensive re-survey of the rare Lady’s-mantle species in road verges and along Public Rights of Way through meadows in Teesdale and Weardale. Sadly, this study also showed a big decline in the extent of the populations compared to her 1950s surveys.

Teaching

Margaret is passionate about teaching and her teaching activities may be her most important work. She has run many plant identification workshops for field staff from nature conservation agencies. Many of these workshops have covered some of the more difficult-to-identify groups of plants such as grasses, sedges and Lady’-mantles. She continues to organise and teach a weekly botany class for her Upper Teesdale Botany Group.