The Venues

For the first three years of the Northern Scythe and Meadows Fair (or Meadow Connections) Lower Winskill Farm was our venue. Lower Winskill is a working farm set in spectacular limestone scenery overlooking Ribblesdale in the Yorkshire Dales National Park.

Tom Lord farms Lower Winskill to encourage wildlife and protect the historic farming landscape. Thank you very much to Tom for hosting the fair and helping to increase the awareness of these increasingly rare habitats.

For more information on the farm please see www.lowerwinskill.co.uk

In 2020 the fair will move to Bell Sykes Farm, Slaidburn BB7 3AQ. 

Bell Sykes Meadows includes six unimproved flower-rich fields. Three of these include grasses such as meadow foxtail and sweet vernal grass along with moisture loving flowers like great burnet and meadowsweet. The upper three fields are home to the characteristic flowers of dry hay meadows in northern England. Meadow crane’s-bill and melancholy thistle grow together with a colourful mix of yellow rattle, eyebrights, pignut, buttercups and lady’s mantle.

Bell Sykes Meadows is one of the last unimproved flower-rich grasslands in this part of Lancashire. This vulnerable habitat has become increasingly scarce and has largely been destroyed in Lancashire through agricultural intensification.