While undertaking research for the ‘Rotherham State of Nature Report’, I was trawling through ’The Naturalist’ the journal of the Yorkshire Naturalist Union, I came across a report of a field meeting to Anston Stone Woods, Thursday 13 April 1886. It was a joint meeting with the Nottinghamshire Naturalists. Sir Henry Clifton Sorby attended and went off around coal mines and quarries studying geology. The other naturalists, of which 125 went for tea in Worksop in the evening, went exploring the woods, canal, Reserviors etc. It’s a good walk from Kiveton Park Station to Anston Stone Woods and then onto Worksop, given they would have been in full Victorian attire, particular for the ladies. They were certainly a hardy group. A total of 54 bird species is remarkable given the optics of the time and many species no longer occur in the area today. I am sure there will be unusual species from the other groups recorded that are of note today. The time and effort to organise such an event, all would have been by letters, by modern standards is remarkable.
Bob Croxton
This link is a pdf taken from the Naturalist Volume 10 – 1886 pages 260 to 262. All copies of the Naturalist are available from the YNU’s website.