Tod's Lot is 40 acres of mixed, somewhat craggy land inside the Lake District National Park about one mile southwest of Crook. It has glorious views which run from the head of Morecambe Bay, through Clougha Pike and Ward's Stone to the south behind Lancaster, the west-facing scars by Kendal, the Howgills, the Shap Fells, and round to the fells east of Kentmere.

In recent years it been worked organically and this will continue. Prior to that it is clear that there has been a long period over which stone clearance has taken place and has, indeed, continued until 2004.

So far as we know the Lot was first enclosed as the southern part of Crook Hall Allotment in the Enclosure Award of 1829. It went to a Thomas Burningham and then had an area of 69 acres 1 rod and 8 perches. This was the largest of the general allotments and suggests that he must have been, by local standards, a substantial landowner. The land north of the road to Crook Hall Farm is now in separate ownership, and there is no access on that side of the road.

For a long time the northern part of the Lot has been grazed by sheep and cattle. Judging by the 1860s OS map it had few trees at that time. Perhaps the record on the English Heritage website (www.pastscape.org) of 'unconfirmed hut circles' in the north-east corner of the Top Pasture stretches this particular clearance back a bit: about 3,000 years, maybe? The former sub-dividing walls have been almost completely robbed of their stone but these boundaries are being partly re-instated in order to control grazing more effectively. The southern part is where partial stone clearance is most recent and has most trees with a fair covering of thorn, gorse and bracken and with rowan, ash, birch, willow, the odd sycamore, elm, elder and cherry, and a bit of juniper. There are several very interesting boggy patches, and there is a slight suggestion of heathiness on some of the anthills towards the top of the Lot around the viewpoint on Scroggs.

Contact : info@todslot.co.uk