2026
Rose was commissioned by the Yorkshire Peatland Partnership to create a new artwork celebrating the reintroduction of vanished sphagnum moss species to North Yorkshire. The work was funded by a Farming in Protected Landscapes grant from Nidderdale National Landscape.
The Yorkshire Peatland Partnership have been undertaking research and developing the practice of reintroducing vanished sphagnum moss species to the peatlands of Yorkshire. There are a number of sphagnum species that disappeared from the bogs of Yorkshire during the Industrial Revolution, their traces found in peat cores. Now they can only be found in the far north of Northumberland and in Scotland. The YPP have been working with Kingsdale Head farm in the western Dales to develop ways of propagating sphagnum mosses like austinii and planting them out to help regenerate peatlands. And now this new FiPL funded project ‘Sphagnum Pioneers’ is helping Fran Craven – a grower in Pateley Bridge – set up to propogate sphagnum moss.
Working with the Yorkshire Peatland Partnership, the Fran Craven and the Dead Plant Society in Leeds, Rose has been investigating the ecological and human communities that grown around these wonderful mosses, including running workshops at Leeds Art Gallery and in Pateley Bridge. She has created a new collage, which can currently be seen as part of the Yorkshire Peatland Partnership’s ‘Peat. Plants. People.’ exhibition at the Leeds City Museum.
