Askham Bog — Walking Through 15,000 Years of Ice, Water & Wild Nature (Live Walking Tour)

Filmed live on location , this walking tour explores Askham Bog — one of Britain’s most ancient and ecologically rich landscapes, shaped by glaciers, Roman roads, medieval peat‑cutters and centuries of wild growth. Askham Bog formed 15,000 years ago when meltwater from the retreating Fenno‑Scandian ice sheet pooled between two terminal moraines. Today it survives as a rare mosaic of fen, carr woodland, raised bog, peat ditches, open water and acid pools — a “cathedral of nature conservation”, as Sir David Attenborough described it. Along the walk we explore: The glacial moraine that became the Roman road to York The flooded hollow that formed the original bog Medieval peat‑cutting that reshaped the landscape Tudor hemp retting and its strange, smelly legacy The royal fern (Osmunda regalis) — possibly 500 years old Rare plants including gingerbread sedge, royal fern, marsh stitchwort and water violet The wildlife of the bog — marsh tit, willow tit, kingfisher, reed warbler and winter migrants The modern conservation battle that saved the bog from development Askham Bog is Yorkshire Wildlife Trust’s oldest nature reserve — a place where Ice Age geology meets medieval industry, Tudor agriculture, Victorian game coverts and modern conservation. A landscape shaped by time, water, and human hands, still holding one of the richest concentrations of species in northern England.