Conserving Heritage Sites on Birkrigg Common

Birkrigg Common is a jewel in the Furness landscape. It is renowned for its stunning setting, providing panoramic views across Morecambe Bay, the Lake District Fells, the Pennines and beyond. Walkers, cyclists and tourists alike use and appreciate this fabulous resource. The work of our volunteers is helping protect and preserve this unique landscape for future generations to enjoy.

The common's limestone pavement and acid grassland is the perfect home for ground nesting birds and skylarks can often be heard singing overhead.

Humans have also been visiting the common for thousands of years. Many archaeological sites here date to the Bronze Age (around 4000 years old) and are protected by Historic England as Scheduled Monuments. This includes Birkrigg Stone Circle a rare example of a double (or concentric) ring of standing stones, burial mounds and settlement sites.

Nineteenth-century lime kilns and quarries bear testament to past agricultural/industrial activity and the Common was even used in the 20th century by the military to undertake target practice.

Since 2015 our volunteers have been carefully clearing vegetation, primarily bracken, away from the immediate area of three of these monuments. Each year less bracken has grown back improving the visibility of the features.

Thanks to their hard work, the banks of the settlement enclosures and the outer ring of the stone circle, which were previously hidden beneath a dense canopy of vegetation during the summer months, are now visible all year round. Grassland flower species are now establishing themselves in the open areas increasing the biodiversity of the common.

The reduction in bracken growth has allowed Historic England to remove the sites from their Heritage at Risk register as fewer rhizomes are spreading underground so there will be less damage to any buried archaeological features.