01/09/2026
THE MEN WHO KEEP THE DALES
There are jobs you do.
And there are jobs that become your life.
High above the valleys, beyond the villages and stone walls, there are men who know the Yorkshire Dales in a way most of us never will.
They know where the curlew will return in spring.
They know where the water lies after three days of rain.
They can read the heather, spot a change on a hillside and tell when something isn’t right.
They’ve walked these moors in sunshine, sideways rain, fog, snow and those bitter Yorkshire mornings when most of us haven’t even contemplated putting the kettle on.
They are the gamekeepers of the Dales.
And pictured here is one of them.
TOM ADAMSON — HEAD GAMEKEEPER, BOLTON ABBEY ESTATE
Tom is part of a profession whose roots stretch back centuries. The word gamekeeper became established in Britain during the 17th century, although earlier parkers and warreners had performed related roles long before that. Traditionally, keepers protected an estate’s game and guarded against poaching.
But look at the job today and you’ll find there’s far more to it than the old image of a bloke in tweed carrying a stick across the moor.
At Bolton Abbey, the keeper’s workplace includes an extraordinary expanse of Yorkshire countryside.
The estate says it manages nearly 15,000 acres of moorland and around 1,500 acres of woodland, with its gamekeepers involved in controlling invasive bracken and rush, maintaining dry-stone walls and helping protect important wildlife habitat.
And underneath their boots lies something incredibly precious.
Peat.
On Barden Moor and Barden Fell, keepers are involved in peatland restoration: blocking drainage gullies, rewetting damaged areas and planting peat-forming species such as sphagnum moss.
Bolton Abbey says around 100 hectares have been planted with sphagnum and other peat-forming vegetation, work intended to retain water, protect peat and reduce risks associated with flooding and wildfire.
Then listen carefully in spring…
Curlew.
That unmistakable call floating across the moor.
Lapwing.
Golden plover.
Redshank.
Oystercatcher.
These aren’t simply pretty birds passing through.
The Yorkshire Dales is an important breeding landscape for curlew, and the National Park Authority says management practices here — including relatively low-intensity farming and predator control — have helped curlew achieve better breeding success than in many other English landscapes.
At Bolton Abbey, Tom and the keepering team even take visitors onto the moors to see curlew and endangered waders and explain the work behind managing their habitat. Tom has also taken part in Let’s Learn Moor, helping primary-school children understand the landscape and why its management matters.
That’s the side of gamekeeping many people never see.
It’s not all shooting days.
It’s habitat.
Water.
Peat.
Walls.
Heather.
Wildlife.
Fire prevention.
Education.
And endless hours spent outside actually watching what’s happening to the land.
AND THAT KNOWLEDGE ISN’T LEARNT FROM A BOOK.
It’s learnt through years.
Often through generations.
The old keepers passed knowledge down — about weather, birds, dogs, seasons and the behaviour of the moor.
There are gamekeeping families across Yorkshire where the countryside hasn’t simply provided employment.
It has provided a way of life.
And perhaps that’s something we’ve become disconnected from.
We drive through the Dales and see a beautiful landscape.
A keeper looks at the same hillside and sees work.
Something needs repairing.
Something needs controlling.
Something needs protecting.
Something needs watching.
Something needs doing before winter.
Because much of the Yorkshire Dales we think of as wild countryside is also a working, managed landscape.
And without people actively managing it, it wouldn’t simply remain frozen exactly as we see it today.
Habitats would change. Bracken and scrub could spread in some places. Walls and other landscape features would deteriorate without maintenance. Restoration work would stop unless somebody else took it on.
That doesn’t mean every form of moorland management is beyond debate — it isn’t. Grouse-moor management, burning, predator control and shooting generate genuine environmental arguments, and different conservation groups disagree strongly about some practices.
But reducing every gamekeeper to a man whose job is simply to produce birds for shooting misses a huge part of the story.
A first-hand account from Grassington Moor describes keepers monitoring a landscape where red grouse share the moor with lapwing, curlew, redshank, golden plover and oystercatchers.
The modern keeper can be part gamekeeper, part conservation worker, part habitat manager, part firefighter, part naturalist…
and part walking encyclopaedia of a piece of Yorkshire.
And then there are mornings when it’s just one man…
a dog…
and several thousand acres of moor.
No audience.
No applause.
Just another day’s work.
That’s why people like Tom matter.
Not because the Dales belong to them.
They don’t.
But because they’re among the people who spend their working lives knowing them.
Farmers.
Wallers.
Rangers.
Foresters.
Shepherds.
And gamekeepers.
Different jobs.
Different traditions.
Sometimes different opinions about how the countryside should be managed.
But all part of the complicated human story behind the landscape millions of us love.
So next time you’re standing high on a Yorkshire moor, listening to a curlew calling somewhere beyond the heather…
remember something.
That landscape didn’t arrive yesterday.
Generations worked it before us.
People are working it today.
And whatever we decide its future should look like…
somebody will still have to get their boots on and look after it.
🧢 TOM ADAMSON
Head Gamekeeper — Bolton Abbey Estate
One of the modern keepers continuing a countryside profession with centuries of history behind it.
And one of the people working quietly behind the scenes of the Yorkshire Dales we see today.
THE KEEPERS OF THE DALES.
Not simply a job.
A life lived on the land.
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