Old limestone quarries are havens for threatened species of plant and wildlife in the Peak. Local author Lynda Aylett-Green reports.
THERE ARE PLACES in the Peak District where special micro-climates shelter rare species of animals, insects and plants that are found only in one dale or on one hillside, or, more surprisingly, on one quarry rock face. Old abandoned quarries, seemingly inhospitable places, attract exotic wildlife to their nooks and crannies with canopies of ash and birch clinging to their cliffs, roots probing down to pockets of collected leaves and soil or knitting together loose scree and lead rakes…