gruffy-ground
n.— «But here and there, as at Charterhouse, Priddy, and around Shipham, the “gruffy-ground,” as it was called, survives. Although wild flowers in great variety blossom on it, and heaps of soil and stone turned over by the miners have become cushiony seas for picnickers, it remains land with an unnatural look—land that even now seems in turmoil, and an impressive monument to the immense energies of men in the long ago.» —“Mendip’s famous centuries-old lead mines” by Jill Bailey Weston Mercury (United Kingdom) May 9, 2007. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Enthusiastic book recommendations! Martha’s savoring the biography of Alexander von Humboldt, the 19th-century explorer, polymath, and naturalist who revolutionized our understanding of nature and predicted the effects of human activity on...
