Tweed and Ink

"He looked like a person listening to a new sound in the distance and wondering what it was." (139)

The Moors at Cotantagle, Perthshire by Charles Leslie (1835-1890), image credit: The Dock Museum

"She unchained and unbolted and unlocked and when the door was open she sprang across the step with one bound, and there she was standing on the grass, which seemed to have turned green, and with the sun pouring down on her and warm sweet wafts about her and the fluting and twittering and singing coming from every bush and tree. She clasped her hands for pure joy and looked up in the sky and it was so blue and pink and pearly and white and flooded with springtime light that she felt as if she must flute and sing aloud herself and knew that thrushes and robins and skylarks could not possibly help it." (147)

Fell Scene with River and Farm (Assumed) by unknown artist (produced 1880-1900), image credit: Tullie House Museum and Art Gallery

"...almost every day Dickon came in, if only for a few minutes, to talk about what was happening on the moor and in the lanes and hedges and on the borders of streams. The things he had to tell about otters' and badgers' and water-rats' houses, not to mention the birds' nests and field-mice and their burrows, were enough to make you almost tremble with excitement when you heard all the intimate details from an animal charmer and realised with what thrilling eagerness and anxiety the whole busy underworld was working." (191)

The Moors by John Arthur Malcolm Aldridge (1905-1983), image credit: British Council Collection

"...the small snowy clouds seemed like white birds floating on outspread wings below its crystal blueness. The wind swept in soft big breaths down from the moor and was strange with a wild clear scented sweetness." (197)

Moors near Dartmeet by Thomas Edwin Mostyn (1864-1930), image credit: Torre Abbey Museum

"The drive across the wonderfulness of the moor was a soothing thing. Why did it seem to give him a sense of homecoming which he had been sure he could never feel again—that sense of the beauty of land and sky and purple bloom of distance, and a warming of the heart at drawing nearer to the great old house which had held those of his blood for six hundred years?" (271)

On the Denbigh Moors by Alfred Oliver (1868-1943), image credit: Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru (The National Library of Wales)

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"Out of a deep window she could see a great climbing stretch of land which seemed to have no trees on it, and to look rather like an endless, dull, purplish sea." (27)

Whitby Moors, North Yorkshire by Tom Bogue (1860-1951), image credit: Ferens Art Gallery

" 'I just love it. It's none bare. It's covered wi' growin' things as smells sweet. It's fair lovely in spring an' summer when th' gorse an' broom an' heather's in flower. It smells o' honey an' there's such a lot o' fresh air—an' the sky looks so high an' th' bees an' sky larks makes such a nice noise hummin' an' singin'. Eh! I wouldn't live away from th' moor for anythin' .' " (28)

Shap Moors by Oliver Hall (1869-1957), image credit: Tate

"The rainstorm had ended and the grey mist and clouds had been swept away in the night by the wind. The wind itself had ceased and a brilliant, deep blue sky arched over the moorland. [...] this was of a deep cool blue which almost seemed to sparkle like the waters of some lovely bottomless lake, and here and there, high, high in the arched blueness floated small clouds of snow-white fleece. The far-reaching world of the moor itself looked softly blue instead of gloomy purple-black or awful dreary grey." (60)

Thunder in the Air, Ranmoor, Sheffield by Henry J. Wood (1869-1944), image credit: Royal Academy of Music

"Everything was strange and silent and she seemed to be hundreds of miles away from anyone, but somehow she did not feel lonely at all." (77-78)

A Dartmoor Stone Cross by William Widgery (1826-1893), image credit: Torre Abbey Museum

" 'Yorkshire's th' sunniest place on earth when it is sunny. I told thee tha'd like th' moor after a bit. Just wait till you see th' gold-coloured gorse blossoms an' th' blossoms o' th' broom, an' th' heather flowerin', all purple bells, an' hundreds o' butterflies flutterin' an' bees hummin' an' skylarks soarin' up an' singin'. You'll want to get out on it at sunrise an' live out on it all day...' " (61)

Cattle by the Dart in Autumn by William Widgery (1826-1893), image credit: Torre Abbey Museum

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