Commons Stories

Commons Stories is a collection of stories from four upland common regions across England: Dartmoor, the Yorkshire Dales, the Lake District and the Shropshire Hills.

You’ll find written and photographic portraits of people, short videos, audio clips, and reflections on events through the year, as well as reflections on some of the challenges of building sustainable futures for people and landscape in these special places.

The collection is put together by somewhere nowhere duo, writer Harriet Fraser and photographer Rob Fraser, with contributions from commoners using GoPro cameras to capture snippets of their day-to-day lives on the farm and in the hills.

 
 
Shropshire Hills Katy Carlisle Shropshire Hills Katy Carlisle

Layered Lives on Clee Liberty Common

Hunting for butterflies, and feeding sheep … Harriet and Rob Fraser join a butterfly hunt on Clee Liberty Common, with Mike Williams from West Midlands Butterfly Conservation and then head out into the uplands of these Shropshire Hills with farmer John Heighway, to find out more about caring for this complex mosaic of landscape.

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Funding

The Our Upland Commons project was a three-year, £3m, 25-partner project made possible by funding from the National Lottery Heritage Fund (thanks to National Lottery players) along with grants from Esmée Fairbairn and Garfield Weston Foundations.  

Local funders were Dartmoor: South West Water, the Duchy of Cornwall, the Dartmoor Preservation Association and Devon Wildlife Trust, amongst others. Shropshire: the Millichope Foundation, amongst others. Yorkshire Dales: Yorkshire Dales Millennium Trust, amongst others. Lake District: the Lake District National Park Authority, amongst others.