Qualla: Moor House-Upper Teesdale

Moor House-Upper Teesdale: Introduction

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

If you stand on Great Dun Fell on a clear winter morning - which you can, because the great white radome of the air traffic radar is technically on a public road - the view is essentially geological. To the east, blanket bog falls away into Upper Teesdale. To the west, the escarpment of Cross Fell drops more than 2,000 feet to the Eden valley. Almost everything you can see, north and south, is the National Nature Reserve called Moor House-Upper Teesdale - England's highest, England's largest, and one of UNESCO's oldest biosphere reserves.

Moor House-Upper Teesdale: A Reserve Made of Two

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Moor House was one of the original eight National Nature Reserves designated in 1952, when the new postwar conservation movement in Britain was still drawing up its list of places worth protecting forever. Upper Teesdale was a separate reserve, declared later, set up specifically...

Moor House-Upper Teesdale: The UNESCO Designation

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

In 1976, while most of Britain was preoccupied with the Cod Wars and the IMF crisis, UNESCO designated Moor House-Upper Teesdale a biosphere reserve. The biosphere programme exists to recognise places where conservation science can be done at landscape scale: not just a single ra...

Moor House-Upper Teesdale: The Pennine Way Goes Through

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The Pennine Way, England's first long-distance national trail, passes through both halves of the reserve - which means walkers tackling the 268-mile route from Edale to Kirk Yetholm get to spend two of their hardest days here. The route crosses Upper Teesdale around High Force an...

Moor House-Upper Teesdale: What Lives Up Here

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The biological reason for the reserve's importance is not obvious at a glance. The high tops look bare - cotton grass, sedges, lichens, the dark hummocks of blanket peat. But hidden among the more common plants are species that have been here since the tundra retreated at the end...