I needed to get away from my computer and enjoy the small differences between things. What better thing to do than go and look at ferns in Highams wood? This is one of my favourite spots in the civil parish of Forest Row ever since I found the coppiced sweet chestnuts in a sea of bluebells
last year. So, armed with Roger Phillips' splendid…
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Added by BradScott on June 17, 2009 at 11:36pm —
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How old can apple trees be? Following up on my
last post and the note about the
PTES orchard survey project, I was at the
NGS open day at
Kidbrooke yesterday. While I was there I looked at the walled garden and its fruit trees in a bit more detail and then compared them…
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Added by BradScott on June 14, 2009 at 3:35pm —
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Now that everything has come to life, the landscape around us is buzzing. Driving over the forest the other day I stopped at Four Counties car park and had a short walk and enjoyed the amazing view across to the North and South Downs. The light was gorgeous so I was fairly pleased with the picture looking north-west:
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Added by BradScott on June 4, 2009 at 4:30pm —
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Intrigued by the term "unconference" that I read in a geeky article the other day, I've been reading more about processes and techniques for participatory action, sharing of information, and planning for the future. I suspect that we've all been to events that utilised some of these techniques, but I was amazed at the range of ideas people have had for having and sharing ideas, so this might initiate some thoughts locally about ways in which we can plan and facilitate events. It also has some re…
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Added by BradScott on June 3, 2009 at 10:39am —
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Not exactly about Forest Row, but the lovely pictures on the
Guardian site of
marine wildlife off British shores appealed to me, being another reminder of the wondrous biodiversity around us. We went down to the beach at Cuckmere Haven on Sunday; it is one of my favourite habitats in Sussex and I always enjoy nosing in the rockpools and exploring the flora and fauna in the valley. The…
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Added by BradScott on April 8, 2009 at 10:30am —
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Another walk up towards the north of the parish yesterday, the goal of which was the Roman iron work site at Cansiron. Walking up the bridleway part of Cansiron Lane there is a small bit of ancient woodland on the left, called Shipyard Pett. Pett is an Old English-derived word for pit, but I'm puzzled about the shipyard connection, unless it is a corruption of something else. We're not exactly close to the sea, especially if one is trying to transport stuff.
…
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Added by BradScott on March 22, 2009 at 4:00pm —
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It is sixty years since the iconic
New Naturalist series began to be published by Collins, and yesterday a
long piece by Richard Mabey was published to celebrate it. Over a hundred titles have now appeared in the series, and they are a vital source and inspiration for us about our natural environment, living up to their original mission to provide a "high standard of accuracy combined with clarity…
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Added by BradScott on March 15, 2009 at 10:09am —
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Interesting item in today's
Guardian about the importance of energy efficiency in the broader picture of climate change. It cites a project last year, funded by British Gas, called Green Streets which was an attempt to reduce energy usage in some streets in a number of cities with a £50,000 prize to spend on a community project. A street in Leeds won, with an average energy saving of 35 per cent.…
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Added by BradScott on March 13, 2009 at 3:00pm —
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Just reading a short article in
New Scientist on "
How social networking might change the world", which also referred to the
Terra future conference that took place in London last week.
I haven't looked see if any of the conference papers are on the web yet, but it had themes relating to sustainability, climate change and transpor…
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Added by BradScott on March 9, 2009 at 11:33pm —
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I managed a lovely walk in the middle of the day today, largely continuing and extending the one I did
last October. I'd also been leafing through
The Ashdown Forest Dispute again and it reminded me about the extent to which the Forest was populated and used by the tenants who lived on its fringes.
Leaving…
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Added by BradScott on March 4, 2009 at 11:06pm —
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In writing about my walks around the parish I've been recording stuff I've been learning about the history of where I live, the built environment, and also about the habitats. As we know, vast tracts of Forest Row parish have lots of
environmental designations, and for good reason; we live in a particularly rich area, biologically.
I'm also conscious how impor…
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Added by BradScott on November 11, 2008 at 9:30pm —
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There was a piece in yesterday's
Guardian about the fact that nearly half of the Ancient Woodland in the UK has disappeared in the last eighty years. Even having the environmental designation doesn't completely protect it either; several hundred woods are threatened by road development or housing. The Woodland Trust have a…
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Added by BradScott on October 23, 2008 at 7:08am —
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I'm hoping the weather holds now for a couple of weeks, since we're in the final run up to the Forest Row Festival on the weekend of 4/5 October (see details on
forestrow.org). There are loads of events, music, performances and film, and it's the bike ride as well on the Saturday; Hillside (the road between the village hall and Bishops) is going to be closed, so it promises to be a great opportunity for people, bicycles and horses to assert their prese…
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Added by BradScott on September 20, 2008 at 2:00pm —
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The summer has been a complete blur. France came and went, though I still have a warm memory of picking bilberries (Vaccinium myrtillus) in the mountains, and of the wonderful bilberry tarts in the mountain villages. I used to pick bilberries while walking on Dartmoor, but never managed to get enough to cook with. In the Vosges, huge family groups were out for the day collecting this most excellent fruit. They're in Ashdown Forest too, of course, and there may even still be some left this season…
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Added by BradScott on September 6, 2008 at 4:42pm —
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Back from holiday today and so nipped down to the allotment to see how things are doing, having been completely neglected for a couple of weeks. The bad news is that about three quarters of the brassicas have been eaten, and those that remain look somewhat dried out; since we've not had any rain either the soil is covered in gaping cracks an inch wide.
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Added by BradScott on July 27, 2008 at 9:00pm —
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I don't mean channa dal and a chicken korma, I mean the food of native Americans. In
yesterday's blog post I noted that there is a Californian Black Oak on the Hartfield Road, and that my tree book suggested the acorns were a North American staple. Ever interested in the prospect of unusual wild food, I've been looking to see what you can do with them.
Apparently not introduced to England until 187…
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Added by BradScott on June 17, 2008 at 9:42pm —
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Somewhat tired tonight when I got back from work, and I'm afraid going to another meeting (ie tonight's Transition group) was not for me. My daughter was up for a walk, so we had a very short amble up to Tablehurst, which re-energised me in lots of ways.
I've been exploring the trees in the village for a while now, and have also created a map showing and linking to all the tree preservation orders for the parish. It is available…
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Added by BradScott on June 16, 2008 at 10:30pm —
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Happily, the allotment is at last beginning to feel like we are managing it. Yesterday we uncovered one of the other beds, extracted a few weeds (and a vile, stinking blighted potato), and planted out about 50 or so brassicas: purple sprouting broccoli, white sprouting broccoli, regular broccoli (var. Spike), and an unidentified group. We've left it covered in fleece and netting; the first year we had the allotment I didn't net them (since I never had where we used to live), and they all got eat…
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Added by BradScott on June 8, 2008 at 8:53pm —
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While walking around the parish I started to wonder how to find a listing of all the listed buildings, partly to find corners of Forest Row that I don't know, and also to start to get a better idea of local building traditions. Moving beyond that, I can imagine using that information as the start of a history project for the parish, as we start to repopulate the old houses from various historical sources, starting off with the Victorian censuses.
Anyway, English Heritage run the…
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Added by BradScott on June 1, 2008 at 8:30pm —
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That's a
Van der Graaf reference, in case you didn't notice. We always find loads of lizards on the allotment, and here is a particularly nice one:
We spent about th…
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Added by BradScott on June 1, 2008 at 7:30pm —
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