A major peatland restoration project has been completed by the North Pennines Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) Partnership.

As the largest and most complex initiative to date, costing a total of £1.2 million, the project was part of the Great North Bog campaign.

Valance Lodge in Upper Teesdale, a landholding owned by Raby Estates and farmed by John Bell, underwent a comprehensive restoration process.

The 96-hectare site, previously a severely eroded blanket bog, has been restored to prevent carbon leaching further into the atmosphere.

The team utilised 1190 tonnes of stone, over 5,700 bags of moss-rich nurse crop, and 150 wool rolls from Bell's own sheep among other methods to restore the site over three years.

In that time, they re-profiled over 15km of eroded peat hagg and planted 63,000 cottongrass and 63,000 sphagnum plug plants by hand.

The challenging terrain and the site's size, over 150 football pitches, required the majority of the materials to be airlifted by a helicopter.

Joe Robinson of Raby Estate said: “We’re very pleased to have been part of this collaborative approach to restore such a large area of land. It’s also extremely positive that this project is part of the wider, pan-Northern collaboration for peatland restoration in the form of the Great North Bog.”

Kate Cartmell Done, from the North Pennines AONB Partnership, said: “This was an immense project to tackle, on a scale we’ve not worked on before. We’ve learned a lot from this project, and we’ve been able to use this experience and knowledge as we begin work on other larger sites across the North Pennines AONB."