What does Wolds land mean?

[Devil's advocate]

@DrWazzock mentioned how good Wolds land is.

I know they have this land in Lincolnshire & Yorkshire.

I would have thought steep, stony, shallow & prone to erosion.

But are there different types of "Wolds". JSR farming grow potatoes & onions on Yorkshire wolds so that must be good land.

Where I live west of Barnsley the higher land has various names.

Royd is a popular name locally & means a clearing on a hill.

Hoyland as the names implies is Highland

Moor is sometimes used in names even good land if it is higher than other local land.

Wold is never used & we have some decent light land on top of hills so??

 

[DrWazzock]

Good question. I have never really given it much thought but to me it is higher chalky free draining land that still draws moisture through the summer. Soil types vary, some being quite sticky and red, others being blacker and more loamy but always containing a lot of chalk. I believe the chalk is the remnants of sea creatures formed millions of years ago when that land was the sea bed but was later heaved up by geological action. I believe such land runs all the way from Paris in a belt up through the south of England then on up to Yorkshire. It’s very good cereal growing land.
We are stuck with sandy Heath formed by the later action of glaciers interspersed with the remnants of prehistoric lagoon bottoms, in other words rank blue marine clay..

 

[thorpe]

@DrWazzock mentioned how good Wolds land is.

I know they have this land in Lincolnshire & Yorkshire.

I would have thought steep, stony, shallow & prone to erosion.

But are there different types of "Wolds". JSR farming grow potatoes & onions on Yorkshire wolds so that must be good land.

Where I live west of Barnsley the higher land has various names.

Royd is a popular name locally & means a clearing on a hill.

Hoyland as the names implies is Highland

Moor is sometimes used in names even good land if it is higher than other local land.

Wold is never used & we have some decent light land on top of hills so??

we have 50 acre of arable land called the moor its not called that for nothing.

 

[Wombat]

Wold land is normally chalk based with a nice silt covering

It is some of the best land around as it’s free draining but will grow cereals, peas and potatoes/onions etc

At one point early In the last century they struggled to give it away locally now it’s a the top end of the land spectrum.

It does eat wearing parts though

 

[teslacoils]

I'm a bit from the wolds. But just "up the hill" is the lincs limestone ridge which has some good dirt too. As with all this brash land, the actual depth of soil can be quite variable though. And I hate to think the cost of the destoning!

An added bonus in the wolds is that they get the low rainfall like us, but it's that bit cooler, and damper from the sea frets. Add that historically most have had a fair bit of pig sh!t spread on, and some blooming big field sizes and it's farming heaven.

 

[midlandslad]

Are values different between the Yorkshire and Lincolnshire wolds?

 

[DrWazzock]

It used to be all sheep and thistles till the 1930’s. Some farmers bought hundreds of acres of it very cheaply and have been smiling ever since.

 

[ARW]

We do lots of work around the vale of York to Malton to Pickering, some boarding the Yorkshire wolds
A lowland farm is usually a wet sodden place with many dykes and hedges all to be maintained, antiquated drainage systems and wet farm tracks all needing repair, the land can be blue clay to blow away sand, some dry, some wet for a week after a shower.
Then we travel up to the wolds, good decent sized fields, sparse hedges that take no cutting, the odd dyke possibly that runs a trickle of water, farm tracks are just soil scraped off to a stone base, the free draining land spans for miles of 4 tonnes t acre o wheat, it looks to good to be true!
That’s how it looks from here in the wet puddle lowlands

 

[Devil's advocate]

We do lots of work around the vale of York to Malton to Pickering, some boarding the Yorkshire wolds
A lowland farm is usually a wet sodden place with many dykes and hedges all to be maintained, antiquated drainage systems and wet farm tracks all needing repair, the land can be blue clay to blow away sand, some dry, some wet for a week after a shower.
Then we travel up to the wolds, good decent sized fields, sparse hedges that take no cutting, the odd dyke possibly that runs a trickle of water, farm tracks are just soil scraped off to a stone base, the free draining land spans for miles of 4 tonnes t acre o wheat, it looks to good to be true!
That’s how it looks from here in the wet puddle lowlands

Illuminating.

Growing up on a hill (a productive one) I'd always thought low lying land was better (apart from last winter of course)

 

[Devil's advocate]

So the uderlying bedrock is chalk, which gives the free drainage (hence not too much erosion) chalk been a soft rock will break easily so anything ploughed up will in time become part of the top soil. I'm starting to get it.

Why was it underrated till the 30's

Our light land (over millstone grit) was transformed by trace element sprays & livestock minerals, I presume same for the wolds?

 

[teslacoils]

Illuminating.

Growing up on a hill (a productive one) I'd always thought low lying land was better (apart from last winter of course)

Hehe. I drive up the hill to some excellent limestone land. But in the main we get some ace yields here on the clay, and the grass never runs out of water. My cousin's farm in the Yorkshire mag limestone is lovely, lovely soil, but lots of small fields. Yeah, you can make a seedbed with a handful of twigs dragged over it, but my small fields are those under 30ac.

I often wonder out of say a 400ac wold farm, just how many acres are deep soil, and how many acres are either too steep, too shallow, to be cropped. Tbh I'll never own nor farm one so I don't dwell on it.

 

[DrWazzock]

I used to help a mate out on the wolds. Ploughed land crumbled easily with just a set of zig zag harrows and the tractor didn’t leave wheelings. Heaven. Beet harvesting wasn’t so easy as when it got wet it stuck to everything like gravelly porridge. You never got bogged down though.

 

[DrWazzock]

Some bits are ridiculously steep and sometimes you get outcrops of limestone but generally speaking I’d swap it for this stuff any day. Completely different stuff.

 

[teslacoils]

It's never for sale anyway. Not to the likes of me.

I takes that back, as I saw a bit was for sale near Walesby but I'm not really after any bare land.

 

[goodevans]

Would the Downs in the southern counties be the same or would the soil be a lot thinner

 

[Devil's advocate]

Hehe. I drive up the hill to some excellent limestone land. But in the main we get some ace yields here on the clay, and the grass never runs out of water. My cousin's farm in the Yorkshire mag limestone is lovely, lovely soil, but lots of small fields. Yeah, you can make a seedbed with a handful of twigs dragged over it, but my small fields are those under 30ac.

I often wonder out of say a 400ac wold farm, just how many acres are deep soil, and how many acres are either too steep, too shallow, to be cropped. Tbh I'll never own nor farm one so I don't dwell on it.

My brother who works outside agriculture has some land at Tickhill which is mag limestone but down to grass, it can become very wet. Tickhill church is nice built from the dark cream coloured mag limestone is nice.

 

[Devil's advocate]

Some bits are ridiculously steep and sometimes you get outcrops of limestone but generally speaking I’d swap it for this stuff any day. Completely different stuff.

Do they break shear bolts on ploughs?

 

[DrWazzock]

It's never for sale anyway. Not to the likes of me.

They rarely seem to come onto the open market. First you hear it’s already changed hands, though some was advertised near Binbrook lately. My cousin has plenty of it, the blessed branch of the family. Auntie married well. Cousin bought a farm like ours down here and thought it such a bad job he put the put the whole lot down to miscanthus.
Difficult land makes good farmers. That’s what I say, though grandad said he would have sold this farm a week after he’d bought it, that’s if he could have found a buyer.
Oh well, the roll of the dice.

 

[teslacoils]

My brother who works outside agriculture has some land at Tickhill which is mag limestone but down to grass, it can become very wet. Tickhill church is nice built from the dark cream coloured mag limestone is nice.

Historically my family farmed around Wadworth, Loversall, and around Doncaster. Mostly houses, racecourse, motorway and nature reserve now.

 

[DrWazzock]

Do they break shear bolts on ploughs?

Certainly can. You can ruin some of it by ploughing too deep and bringing up too much stone. Slatted mouldboards were popular on the stickier stuff. A lot of it is mintilled nowadays anyway.