SWOG meeting: planning and archaeology

Last Saturday we had another SWOG meeting, this time at the Woodland Enterprise Centre in Flimwell. Several regulars weren't able to come, but we still had over 30 people.
In the morning we heard from Nick Ide, a planning consultant for Batcheller Thacker.
He explained the labyrinth of planning and woodlands, and gave us insights into how planning officers think (he used to be one). I won't go into details here, but basically if you want to do some "development" (which can include pretty much anything), you first need to look at the local and area plans to see what the policy is, and make sure your proposed project fits in with them. If it does, it's more difficult for a planning officer to object.

After lunch, we heard from Lyn Palmer, an archaeologist working in the Weald area. She showed us some pictures made using LIDAR (LIght Detection And Ranging), which show up features such as old tracks, charcoal burning platforms, remains of forts and other interesting features. These are often invisible on the ground (until you know where to look for them) as the differences in the height of the ground are very subtle. You can read all about it in this PDF (1.6MB)

David Brown, of South East Woodland Archaeology Forum was next, and took a small group on a tour of some archaeological features of the woods at WEC. This is an old charcoal burning platform - you mostly spot them by their shape:
but also by the dark colour of the earth, from years of charcoal fines being mixed in there: Next up was a saw pit, which would have been used to saw the butts of large trees lengthways to make planks (it would have been much deeper when in use):
That's quite a large saw pit though, more commonly they are flatter, and therefore harder to spot:
Finally we visited the site of an old bloomery, where iron was smelted from ore dug out of the ground nearby.
In the stream were remains of the slag from the bloomery, which was very dense as it still contains quite a lot of iron:
The only thing we didn't see was a wood bank (boundary marker, or feature to keep animals out), because at this time of year the bracken has grown so much they're hard to find!

Mike

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Fiona's wood

As members of the Small Woodland Owner's Group (SWOG) we are able to meet loads of interesting people and been able to visit other woodlands. Last week we went to see Fiona.
She has a wonderful woodland full of interesting things!

Stunning dead wood!
A V1 flying bomb from WW2
and loads more. You can see more pictures of her wood on the small woodland owners blog.

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SWOG Butterfly ID day

Yesterday we hosted a butterfly ID day in our wood, run by Steve Wheatley from Butterfly Conservation and attended by about 10 SWOG (Small Woodland Owners Group) members.
We started with Steve giving us a talk about butterflies, and why identifying them and keeping centralised records is important. He needs lots of people like us to note down what we see and send records to him periodically, so that they can keep track of species numbers and use the information in scientific research and also in planning permission issues and other stuff like that. He also gave us some tips on how to ID butterflies, including the differences between the various white species, and using knowledge on which months the butterflies can be seen to help narrow down the choices.
We took a walk along the wayleave and also along our wildlife corridor, stopping at various points to talk about what we were seeing.
There was patchy cloud, so it wasn't a perfect day for butterfly spotting, but we still saw quite a few. Here's the ones I got pictures of. A Peacock, looking a bit ragged:A Speckled Yellow - actually a day-flying moth rather than a butterfly:
A Brimstone - this is the first time I have ever seen one of these land so I could take a picture! A shame it wouldn't spread its wings out, but at least I now know a potential spot to go and try again.
We also saw some other interesting things as we went around, such as this bird nest up a pylon. Any ideas what it might be?
and in the wildlife corridor, where we were felling just a few months ago, as well as several butterflies we found an adder, which had probably been basking in the sun:
It didn't like the attention, and slithered off to a hole in a coppice stump - it certainly seemed to know exactly where to go and hide!
Mike

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SWOG meeting near Ashford

As Tracy mentioned, we went to a Small Woodland Owners Group (SWOG) meeting at a wood near Ashford last Saturday. Tracy had of course done all the organising, though fortunately she had a team of helpers on the day. The wood itself was 176 acres, and very diverse.
The morning was a little damp, but that wasn't too bad as we were indoors (yes, this wood has an "indoors"!) having a talk from Peter Buckley on different woodland soil types and the species of tree that grow well in them.
After this we split up into groups and dispersed into the wood, each group with one or two forestry experts to answer questions.
By lunchtime the weather had brightened up considerably, and the afternoon was actually quite sunny.
There were various things to see during lunch, include the boar's skull we'd brought, and a display of different dormouse and other nests.
This is a dormouse nesting box - if you see one, DON'T look in it, as that's illegal unless you're a registered dormouse handler.
WoodlandsTV were there filming too, and David Rossney (who Tracy and I trained with) deliberately hung up a tree and demonstrated how to bring it down safely. (Here's my own post with similar info, which I learned from David)
All in all it was a good day, and everyone seemed to have fun and learn a lot. The next SWOG event is a butterfly ID day in May, being held in our own wood. Keep an eye on the SWOG Forum for news on it.

Mike

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Restoring old pollards

Many ancient woodlands have old pollards - that need to be taken care of, so that they don't die.
Toby Allen has written an article for SWOG (Small woodland owners group) on how to deal with them, well worth a read!

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Ashburnham Place

We've just got back from a church weekend away, and I thought people might like to see some pictures of where it was, as the grounds were beautiful, even in winter. Its Ashburnham Place, if you want to look it up. The photos are just from a mobile phone, so sorry if the quality's not what it normally is on our blog.

First, a few pics of the grounds in general, which include two lakes:
Below the lower lake is a stream with an old weir in it:
and alongside it are the rusting remains of an old ram pump, which I assume used to supply water to the house:You can see the pipe the pump used to feed behind the remains of the old waterwheel:
Apparently there's some ideas about restoring some of this old machinery - I'd like to see it again if they do...

OK, now on to the woods! Here's a sweet chestnut way older than the ones we have in our own wood:
We've singled a few of the coppice stools we cut this winter, to let them grow on as standards, but it'll be decades before they're anything close to this one! Next, a giant redwood:
OK, I know it's only a baby one...

An oak with epicormic growth:and a variety of trees (mostly oak) that are dead or dying, resulting in a diverse habitat:That's all for now, I've got a busy week ahead with a few trips to London for work, and Tracy wil be busy with SWOG, which is expanding into Wales now.

Mike

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