Elinor Cole Poetry on Conservation

The word ‘conservation’ conjures up images of wonderful traditional countryside teeming with wildlife but quite often conservation can be found in the most unlikely places. One such place is to be found in the heart of the ‘Black Country’ once at the very heart of industrialised Britain. Saltwells Nature Reserve, Quarry Bank, and in particular Doulton’s Clay Pit is an area surrounded by an urban landscape and almost frozen in time although a lot of conservation work has taken place there over the years.

Elinor Cole a young imaginative up and coming poet has written, especially for the Trust, a very emotive poem rooted in the urban post–industrialised landscape but based with an imaginative historical resonance.

She focuses on the ways that this piece of land has recovered from its days of toil, and been reclaimed by nature. Her mind strayed to the many first and second war commemorations going on at the moment and she began to see the claypit as a serviceman itself, giving its all for the country before being allowed to recover and mend.