A WILD plant food forage on Ilkley Moor saw participants discover the many edible and medicinal plants that grow around them.

Organised by the Friends of Ilkley Moor and led by the organisation's project officer, Tracy Gray, the group discovered many of the common plants around them are powerful medicines and also provide great nutrition.

The event took place on August 23, and under glorious skies the group ambled along the lower slopes of the moor, climbed to the upper tarn and back down, across the middle slopes of the moor, stopping often to learn about the plants around them.

Tracy said: "People learnt of the berries and nuts they could eat: bilberry, blackberry, raspberry, elderberry, hazel and sweet chestnut.

"They learnt that in the past people used acorns to make an edible flour and that heather flowers were used to make beer, as is still practised in some parts of Scotland today. Bracken was collected and used as animal bedding and for thatching, and in the Far East young bracken shoots were candied and eaten."

Tracy also told participants about how modern medicine, even though it arrives to us now as a little pill, actually starts out as a plant.

"The active medicinal properties of these are then isolated and often synthesised to produce modern medicine," added Tracy. "The wisdom of herbal medicine is once again being increasingly practised, as people once again start understanding the healing properties of plants."

Plants with medicinal properties include yarrow, nettle, hawthorn and meadowsweet, from which modern day aspirin is derived. The inner bark of the white willow was also used as pain relief. Participants discovered the importance of Sphagnum moss during the Second World War and how on Friday afternoons schoolchildren were sent to the moor to collect this. This was then sent to the war medical camps and applied to soldiers' wounds. It soaked up the blood and infection, and its naturally antiseptic properties helped heal wounds.

l A social history event, again organised by the Friends of Ilkley Moor, took place on August 22. It was led by Alex Cockshott from the Ilkley Civic Trust, who spoke about how in the season of 1853 Charlotte Brontë visited Ilkley twice. Ilkley was then regarded as an inland spa – a village of fresh air and pure water. Seventeen people attended this walk and discovered the history of the moor during this time.

The events programme and heritage walks can be downloaded from the FOIM website ilkleymoor.org or collected from Ilkley Information Centre and shops in the town.