Welcome to the quiz!…Here’s are 5 of the questions.

1] On 2^nd October 1948 the RAC staged the country’s first ever grand prix at a recently decommissioned wartime RAF station in rural Northamptonshire. Today the course still hosts the British Grand Prix. Name it.    

2] Alauda arvensis has been celebrated in an ode by Shelley and a musical composition by Vaughn Williams. By what common name do we know this bird?

3] The Meade family founded England’s leading organic dairy. The grounds around their Somerset creamery and farm have also become a tourist attraction, as the country’s biggest certified organic gardens. Name the geographical location that gives its name to both the product brand and gardens.     

4] Which traditional countryside craft centres round the skill of ‘pleaching’?

5] Two of the 39 historic English counties contain English rivers in their name. Name both rivers. Clue: One is tidal, the other a freshwater tributary.                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

I recently gave the 2022 ‘England and the English Countryside’ table quiz to the Northumberland branch of the Campaign for the Protection of Rural England – CPRE (est. 1926). The setting was the Badger Inn at Ponteland, near Newcastle.  A large yet homely venue with great staff who helped us set up the function room for the evening’s entertainment. Delighted we had such a good turn out, despite the filthy weather, with all tables taken and teams sorted.

Best of all, once we’d got going and the scores started to come in, I was relieved that having a long lead in time, with chance to revise and re-balance, had properly paid off so I could now relax and enjoy the experience. The average score was an all round high across all five rounds, with questions covering history, geography, art and science, sport, entertainment, natural history and literature.

The picture round asked teams to identify 12 popular attractions in England – from the Jurassic Coast (pictured) to Kew Gardens – all of which are UNESCO world heritage sites. I like my quizzes to be challenging, accessible at best, guessable at worst, calling on teams to pool their collective knowledge. Best of all the participants seemed to enjoy the whole experience and were absorbed by it. There was a dead heat for first place and we left it at that, with the honours shared. Laughter, applause, conversations and new friends made. Perfect!

I’ve been a member of CPRE for some years now and on moving to Northumberland I wanted to do something that would help, other than being a member, so after attending a CPRE organised talk I offered my services as a quiz setter and presenter. The offer was gratefully accepted and I set to work, finding a venue and sorting the questions.

That first quiz was held in Hexham, at the County Hotel, just before the first Covid lockdown in February 2020 and proved very popular. After that they were reformed and held online during the pandemic. This then was the first real life pub quiz since and – like live performance – it proved a welcome return to good old social interaction. Team quizzes did not work half as well online when at a time when you could not socialise outside your own household and team numbers were lower, with less of wider shared knowledge to draw on.

Annie, the part time branch secretary, is a powerhouse who gets work actioned with charm and efficiency and is always a joy to work with. She and husband Steve alongside other committee members got everything sorted front of house, organised a raffle and prizes, and Annie also said a word or two about the charity and its work both nationally and locally.

Having Kim by my side to do the scores and help co-ordinate with our hosts made a big difference to the quality of the presentation. Everyone left the pub in the best of spirits and I’m already starting to devise and log more questions, on the same theme, for next years quiz.

Answers: Silverstone / Skylark / Yeo Valley / Hedgelaying (Partial cutting & laying of stems to promote growth) Northumberland (Humber) & Cambridgeshire (Cam).

Just finished this autumn’s extended county wide tour of Haunted. (See the ‘Ghost Story’ blog). The Border Readers first tour post Covid. Core company readers Grace, Janine and I were joined by guests John Cobb, Stefan Escreet and Roberta Kerr at different venues. Our good friends not only brought read brilliantly, they also offered a different take on the stories and added to our offer as an association of regionally based professional actor/readers.

This year’s story line up featured Oscar Wilde’s The Canterville Ghost. I particularly enjoyed reading this classic as it’s one of a rare breed of ghostly tale, combining wit and morality, comedy and satire to fashion the great writer’s own brand of Gothic romance. Originally a novella, I’d edited and abridged the work so it came in at a listenable 45’. A class act from a master storyteller, a delight to read and to hear being read by John at Cherryburn, for the National Trust, and Stefan at Hexham for Northumberland  Library Service.

A couple of years ago we premiered Christine Poulson’s short story Safe As Houses, a gripping dystopian take on contemporary living in a smart home. As a result of that collaboration her publisher at Comma Press commissioned another modern horror story for a new anthology. The result was Teeth and Hair which I was delighted to have in the line up for this tour. That 40’ tale of modern unease played out in its isolated rural setting opened our evening’s entertainment.

Elizabeth Bowen’s reputation and popularity is once again in the ascendancy. Her short stories are highly atmospheric and psychologically disturbing narratives, and those set in the Second World War – in which she served as a London fire warden – are particularly powerful. The Demon Lover, written in 1942, is probably her most famous story and one most often admired by other writers of the genre. The shortest of our offerings at 20’ its finale leaves a powerful visual impression and proved the perfect tale to send audiences homewards in the dark.

Bobbie (Roberta) and husband Graeme are amongst my oldest friends and they joined us at Felton village’s Gallery Forty5. It’s a place where we’ve built a following so enjoyed a particularly appreciative full house and afterwards we joined locals in the nearby Foxes Den bar before heading off to our respective homes, cross country. Very glad to have Graeme that night as a passenger – just like Jan on other nights – because they both had GPS systems on their phones. The A1 seemed permanently closed for works, in different places, every time we were travelling back so we were regularly diverted into Newcastle’s suburbs with little idea of where we were going.

Half our ten venues were urban and half rural. We were warmly received and looked after in both and our audiences, small and large, really appreciated what was on offer. With fewer listeners we were able to chat, before, after and in the interval and that added extra pleasure to the experience.

Another plus was seeing the life size sheep at our handful of Northumberland County Library venues, part of the ‘Illuminated Sheep’ art project partnering the Lindisfarne Gospels exhibition at The Laing Art Gallery in Newcastle and part of the Hadrian Wall 1900 Festival.

At Ashington the staff creatively dressed and set their sheep in a football setting, reflecting the town’s great footie heritage (This former coal mining village was the home of Jackie Milburn, Bobbie and Jac Charlton). Blyth’s librarians advertised our event with a ‘Rosemary’s Lamb’ in a corner of the fiction library while Bellingham’s ewe was content to simply graze in the limelight on the lawn outside the Town Hall, where we were performing that evening.

A walk up the road brings us to a field where Easterhouse’s Suffolk ram has been harnessed with its chest marker and put to their flock of texels and mule ewes. As the name indicates Suffolk are a lowland breed originating from the county of that name in the south of England, prized for their quick maturing fat lambs. He’s not easy to overlook either, being dyed yellow as a result of the latest farming fad for colouring tups. Suffolks grow their wool short and dense so can take a dose of dye while a long rough staple northern breed like Blackface or Swaledale would prove nigh impossible to colour up in this manner.

Strolls or bike rides along the lane inevitably means finding an empty red bull tin. The tosser responsible for littering the verges with them is probably either a log lorry driver, delivery driver or local resident. Luckily it’s not a serious environmental problem compared with more densely populated areas by busier roads but it’s still annoying and of course unnecessary. I continue to collect, stamp down and add the cans to our recycling.

After a few weeks of inaction we’ve once again been troubled by the remaining member of our resident mole family. Have had to reset both the half barrel and clip type traps in the garden meadow area they colonise. This roughly triangular patch has a labyrinth of tunnels established by earlier intrusions from our field the other side of the fence. It troubles me to see their dead velvet coated forms gripped by metal wires or claws but it hurts even more to see the damage the remorseless burrowers will cause throughout the garden if left unchecked.

All the apple varieties in the garden – with the exception of Christmas Pippin – have now been gathered in and I’m still processing them as puree or dried fruit for winter use. Old sweet jars, like the one seen here, are great for this. An end of seasonal fare for birds, rodents and slugs to feast on. I witnessed for the first time a crow fly off with a large windfall apple in its beak. The general ingenuity of the corvus family should never be underestimated and I wonder if they’ve developed this technique or learnt it from parents.  

Pondering on pets and predators, we still miss Pip, our little black and white Geordie cat. She lived to a good age and now rests in peace in the garden below the wooden henge. Three years on and her role as rodent population controller becomes more obvious than ever. I hate having to use poison to limit rat and mouse numbers but until another cat comes along that’s what we’ve had to do.

The rats do us a good turn (literally) in the main compost bin, as their wall of death circuitry is effective in mixing up old, decaying and new material. To ensure being spared seeing them at work I always knock on the wood lid before lifting. Have now added bait to a bowl on top of the mix and should soon see results. A field mouse (or mice) has been seen about the house and their preference for avocados in the larder shows discerning taste at least. Sadly not for much longer as the little dishes of granular bait secreted under store cupboards and other hideaway places have been consumed overnight.

I spend a happy morning re-clipping the string of fairy lights around the upper edging and wooden rafters of the recently rebuilt garden porch. In the process I reach up to feel in the nest that the swallows built this year and discover four perfect little eggs. That second brood only produced one fledgling so these infertile unhatched eggs, measuring some 13 x 20 mm, are a poignant, beautiful reminder of our summer visitors. The photograph shows the clutch in a new setting – an abandoned goldfinch nest I found in the garden, that now sits on a shelf on the porch.

I retain a soft spot for parsnips as a vegetable. A dependable grower in harsher climes, we appreciate its sweet delicacy of flavour in the darkest months of the year. Our less favourable soil conditions mean smaller crops but when chopped and turned into soup, served with fresh home made bread, they make for a warming and wholesome autumn meal.

A glance out to front yesterday caught a thrush on branches eyeing up the bumper crop of red berries on the holly bush. Closer examination revealed it to be a redwing. Same family, smaller than a song thrush, with distinctive yellow eyebrow and the namesake red patch under the wing. A reminder that these overwintering visitors from the far north have already arrived. An odd feeling when temperatures are currently remaining stubbornly high for November. Another reminder, if needed, that climate change is affecting seasonal weather patterns.

Enjoyed an unusual cultural night out last Friday. Had an invite to a private view of a friend’s art exhibition, hosted in a tiny parish church tucked away in the countryside just off the A68 to the south of us.

Matilda is an artist of our generation, based near Hexham, whose practice covers collage, painting, drawing and monoprinting, largely influenced by art history. The work on show this weekend, suspended in front of the altar, is a towering 6B pencil drawing on paper of a Nootka Cypress tree that grows in Jesmond Dene, Newcastle. It was originally displayed, pre-Covid, in the park’s deserted banqueting hall courtesy of the Armstrong Studio Trust in April 2019.

Nootka Cypress is a native tree of northern America. The Nuu-chah-nulth people of Vancouver Island hold to the belief ‘hishuk’ ish tsawalk’ or ‘Everything is One’; everything in nature is interconnected, inseparable. The work measures 4 x 3 metres, took five months to complete and is hung here in the chapel in a more advantageous position, being on level ground, unlike the banqueting hall where it was on display at the bottom of steps. Everyone took turns to get up as close as we could to see things in detail. Scrutiny revealed horizontal parallel lines made as the artist, unrolling the paper as she progressed, picked up the grain of the wooden tabletop she was working on.

Matilda told me she was very grateful to the specialist installer for the skill and patience it took to safely erect scaffolding within the Grade II listed building and to secure the work with magnets onto its frame. Sadly Kim and I weren’t free to attend the following evening when our mutual friend Linda France would be giving a reading from her latest collection Startling and other work, reflecting the spirit of the natural world that inspired the drawing’s creation.

The chapel of St John lies is in the small village of Healy. It’s a parish of less than 200 souls in the area known as The Shire, between the valleys of the Tyne and the Derwent rivers, where Northumberland meets County Durham. Healey parish was originally a holding of the Knight Templars and later the Knights Hospitallers, and the neo-Norman design of the chapel pays homage to that medieval inheritance.

Built 1860, with tower added thirty years later, the chapel (which is also the parish church) boasts an unconventional three light pattern window in circular surround at its west end, and its illuminated presence cheered our arrival in the failing light. My eye was also taken by the (no-you-can’t really-sit-in-me) topiary yew chair by the entrance porch.

Adding to the building’s architectural charm, in 2011 it won an award from the charity Art and Christian Enquiry for two stained glass windows by Newcastle based Danish artist Anne Vibeke Mou and Durham born James Hugonin. These permanent additions to the fabric were commissioned by local landowner (and our host this evening) Jamie Warde-Aldam. Hugonin’s striking abstract work Contrary Rythmn consists of small rectangles of transparent and translucent glass in which a double helix can be traced in the colour patterns.

We left in high spirits, having enjoyed an unusual cultural treat, with a long overdue chance to catch up with old friends and make some new ones. It was also a rare opportunity to experience and reflect on the fluid interplay of religious space and creative expression in the company of artists and patrons.

We crossed the county border into Cumbria recently to do a walk with friends encompassing Hadrian’s wall, starting and finishing at Lanercost in the valley of the River Irthing.

Lanercost Priory (English Heritage) and the historic parish church, fashioned from its preserved ruins, attract many visitors. My picture of the abbey is from an earlier visit in Spring of 2017, but it captures the peaceful spirit of the place. In its heyday however the place was far from peaceful. Founded by Augustinian canons in the 12^th century the order here was often plagued with money troubles aggravated through pillaging of its properties by raiding Scots armies. In the winter of 1306 – 07 Edward I of England and his invading army heading for Scotland were forced to billet at Lanercost, putting even greater financial strain on the foundation’s stretched resources.

Starting from the car park at Lanercost we ascended out of the sheltered valley on quiet lanes working our way gradually uphill, passing this handsome Cumberland County Council black and white road sign at an intersection.

Did our first crossing of Hadrian’s Wall, or rather a rise in the path with its vallum (ditch) a mere dip in the land, all that’s visible of the 78 mile long world heritage site at this point. The monks happily demolished and carried off the red sandstone ready dressed blocks from here, 700 years after its abandonment by Rome, in order to build their priory in the valley below.

Many mature oak trees marked our walk. This one, marooned in pasture, caught my eye. Thought of it providing essential shelter and shade for countless generations of stock as well as sustaining many species of birds and insects.  

We traversed boggy pastureland and B roads that ascended a ridge, yielding views of far off fells to the south lowering under a leaden sky.  Turning off the tarmac, after a few twists and turns, we regained the wall path proper.   

Just below a small farm we came upon Hare Hill – a protected fragment and  tallest remnant of the Roman wall remaining today. A mere hint of the formidable structure the great wall once was. Experts think this little stretch survived because it was incorporated as part of an outlying medieval farm building while the rest of the lowered section at this point would have been retained as a property boundary by Lanercost Priory.

Beyond Hare Hill the views westwards were extensive, encompassing the Solway estuary and Lakeland fells. At our feet the foundations of the Roman wall jutted out supporting the narrower dry stone wall subsequently built on top. The vallum, much more distinct at this point, running parallel on the northern side, in a field of ranging bullocks, the reason for the contemporary wall being flanked by pole and barb.

We descended to a narrow lane bearing left and followed it back to where we’d started. Amused en route by a simple ‘W.C’. sign with arrow underneath pointing to a portaloo half hidden in a fringe of woodland. A thoughtful and welcome rustic convenience for walkers nevertheless.

Our quiet lane also sported outcrops of shaggy ink cap mushrooms along the verges. Edible fungi, they turn everything cooked with black, and need to be consumed shortly after picking. As the name implies these delicate mushrooms can be used as ink after mixing with a little water and cloves (to fix the colour) according to Wild Food UK.

Back at Lanercost we browsed the gift shop before having a late lunch in the café. Both facilities are housed in single story converted farm outbuildings. Nearby the former farmhouse stands, now appearing to have been transformed into private apartments or holiday lets. I remember this farm from filming here decades ago, when it was a working stead with cattle and sheep and lots of muck in the yard. In our drama it was the home of a dysfunctional family and I was playing the distracted dull witted farmer, always bickering with his wife (played by Caroline John) while our truanting son Kevin’s total absorption in his science fiction comics leads to a life changing encounter with an alien visitor up on the fell…’The Alien’ was a 30’ Dramarama episode from ITV (Border Television), written by David Simpson and directed by Kay Patrick, filmed entirely on location here back in 1988. Our seriously funny morality tale also featured performances by two old Lancaster based actor friends of mine, no longer with us, Ian Blower and Will Tacey.

Dramarama was a ground breaking series of separate stories for and about young people made between 1983 – 1989. Significantly they were stand alone dramas, not continual dramas or soaps. They explored issues around identity and relationships, often through science or the supernatural, and were an important part of the public service remit in the days before market commercial dictates had overrode all other considerations. The historic contractual compact with government meant the independent regional broadcasters had to provide a quota of original home produced content for younger audiences. Halcyon days for young peoples TV drama we’re not likely to see again!

Leaving for home the modern road bridge bypasses an impressive older bridge. This structure’s flood resistant multi-span arch, just wide enough for a cart to pass over, soars above the abbey mill stream where it meets the Irthing. One of only 200 such listed bridges left in the UK, this one dates from 1723 when it was built by local masons re-using stone from an earlier medieval structure, which in turn would most likely have been taken from the Roman Wall. And so it goes… (Bridge Image c. Simon Cotterill)

In 1972 I qualified from Central as a speech and drama teacher. Life and work then began for real, on every level. Here I am now, in a happy place, still learning, still curious, settled at home and engaged with The Border Readers project. Post Covid we’re preparing once again to play community arts venues across rural and urban Northumberland with another Halloweentide line up of classic, modern and contemporary ghost story readings.

Chances are you won’t be able to join us at a gig but if you’re interested in sampling remotely what’s on offer you can hear one of these fabulous tales – Oscar Wilde’s ‘The Canterville Ghost’ – on a free to view You Tube channel ‘The Art of the North’, set up by our company designer Terry Walsh earlier this year. Narration is by me with music and sound effects by Terry.

‘When a golden girl can win / Prayer from out the lips of sin  / When the barren almond bears / And a little child gives away its tears / Then shall all the house be still / And peace come to Canterville.’

Along with a few other ghost stories by masters of the genre, from M R James to Edith Nesbit, this fun exercise in home studio recording seems a fitting way to mark those five decades. It also reminds me just how very fortunate I’ve been to have had such a wonderfully varied career in all aspects of the business, blessed in the company of so many creative and exceptional good companions.

Here’s the link:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5L6Qqq488jAQqgwab6p3rg

Happy listening!

Apples aplenty this year so much time spent recently dealing with the glut. Cookers like Arthur Turner make a great puree, pies & segments slow dried in the Aga before going to store. Most of the crop (James Grieve, Discovery & Katy) grown for juicing means it doesn’t really matter too much what state they’re in when processed.

That’s just as well because birds (especially the blackbirds) make merry with their beaks on the fruit, whether on the bough or the ground. Mice (and I suspect rats) likewise get stuck in once landed. Slugs and insects account for the rest. Wasps though have been notable by their absence this year, which seems odd. Cool temperatures and autumnal winds may have played a part in deterring them.

Not that the resident blackbirds have had it all their own way. Far from it. Going out to empty the kitchen compost bin the other lunchtime I unwittingly disturbed a male Sparrowhawk at its lunch. Caught a few seconds of grey back above long yellow legs and talons as it veered off on the wing. There wasn’t much left of the poor blackbird, just the ripped torso amid a frame of feathers. When I went out again an hour or so later the corpse had disappeared so I guess the raptor must have returned to finish its meal as a takeaway.

Got round to clearing out some gutters and down pipes around house and garage this weekend. A year’s worth of pungent unplugged detritus gave way, nearly giving me an involuntary cold shower. Atop the compression of sludge was a recently deceased mouse. Curious end, climbing high to end up drowned.  

The last cut of grass for the year. A satisfying job when complete, as it frames and sets everything off in the garden. The clippings go to the ewes grazing our field or end up under the denser tree cover in one of the copses or sometimes in the compost bins. Just as I was finishing the starter cord got itself stuck inside the engine head cowling. Don’t know how that happened but luckily no hurry to fix it as the machine won’t see any more action now until next Spring.

Our contractor did a good job on the serious mowing in September, clearing the meadow and raking all the vegetation off so little nutrient waste was left. Very pleased with the spread of yellow rattle this season and only hope that continues next year, as their semi-parasitic action weakening the coarse grasses will help make room for other meadow flowers to grow. Was less pleased with the appearance of molehills. Our late mole catcher Jim had inducted me into the craft and when he retired left me a handful of old half barrel traps. Using them in the meadow and lawn however made no difference to activities of my unwelcome subterranean visitors.

I called by a garden centre and bought a batch of the new style clipper types (pictured) and these proved effective. Easier to set physically and you know when they’re triggered as the handles remain above ground. By trial and error, setting and resetting I eventually caught two, in different places, and have had no trouble since. I hate killing these poor creatures and if other non-lethal ways to rid the garden of them worked I would opt for them. I let them do their thing in our field but once they cross the boundary into the garden it’s all out war.

Moles are voracious eaters of earthworms, disabling their prey and storing them captive in a chamber for eating later. The bulbs we plant in the meadow are safe from them (though not from mice or rats). Growing up in Canada Kim has a fondness for Camassia – the North American wild hyacinth – and we were both very impressed with swathes of this tall blue flowered beauty in the meadow at Yeo Valley organic gardens in Somerset when we visited one late Spring pre-Covid. We’re seemingly doomed to disappointment here as our corms rarely grow more than a foot or so in the meadow. We think it humous rich and well drained enough but clearly the camassia has other opinions. Still, hope the chunky bulbs planted this weekend will prove the exception.

Late flowering blue varieties of clematis and a bed of Michaelmas daisies make for cheering sights at this time of year when most other blooms have passed. Especially when so many insects, bees and butterflies feed on them.

Good cropping on the apple front and the first time we’ve had a proper fruiting from our stout little tree in a tub, gifted by friends, and rejoicing in the name of ‘MickandGrace’. None of us knew what variety it was. Separate threads of homework however declared our apple to be a Golden Noble, an old Norfolk variety of cooker. Grace had grafted the tree on a course at the National Trust’s garden at Acorn Bank in Cumbria and her tutor there helped pin the variety down from a photo I’d sent of the fruit. Our own source was a fabulously authoritive volume I’d been gifted by Kim – The RHS Apple Book. 

It’s also been a grand year for the damsons. Our main tree, a Shropshire Prune variety, has shown vigour in its spread, matched this year at least by the cropping. Bagfuls have been gifted to friends or turned into jam. Best of all lying like sunken treasure in a sea of sweetened gin, gently infusing it with unmistakeable flavour, to help us through the coming long dark winter nights.

The day after the Petworth expedition Geoff, Dianne & I (along with their faithful canine companion Phoebe) took a drive down the A24 to the village of Dial Post and parked there for a visit to the Knepp Castle Estate. If Petworth was the apogee of 18^th Century landscaping on the grand scale in England then Knepp must be the 21^st Century equivalent for re-wilding. How do you balance the need for home food production with the restoration of nature in the farmed landscape? Knepp was one of the first big estates in England to tread this tricky path and the results have been very encouraging indeed.

The 3,500 acre estate just south of Horsham has been in the Burrell family for 220 years. Charlie Burrell and his wife Isabella Tree took on the running of it in 1983. They farmed it conventionally for 17 years as a combined dairy and arable operation. The land hereabouts is predominantly heavy Wealden clay. A great thick mass of it, intractable and heavy, dry and cracked in summer and a dense porridge in winter, and that required tons of artificial fertiliser to increase yields. The soil became even poorer over the years to the point where they were putting more resources in all round than they were taking out. That, combined with ever decreasing margins from milk production, forced them to consider radical alternatives if they wanted to keep farming. They resolved to turn conventional wisdom on its head by taking their hands off the steering wheel and letting nature take over; to begin a challenging process of regenerative husbandry on the 2,400 acres/1,000 hectares bulk of the estate.  

The 21st century started with the painful business of selling off the dairy herd, letting the arable out to contract, getting rid of the heavy machinery and letting loyal employees go with it all. They then removed internal stock fencing and built tall encompassing perimeter fencing to retain their new stock, creatures who would best mimic beasts of the ancient past – aurochs, bison, wild boar. They chose traditional English Longhorn cattle, deer (red, roe & fallow), Exmoor ponies and Tamworth pigs. With their differing grazing patterns these beasts would be the drivers of change, the self regulating managers by which rebalancing could occur across the whole range of interconnected habitats.

Sadly we saw none of those handsome cattle on our three mile sojourn along one section of the estate’s 16 miles of public footpaths and bridleways. We did though glimpse the fleeting forms of deer through dense patches of undergrowth and rejoiced at the sight of sows and boars, wallowing in newly created ponds or alongside their maturing piglets turning up the turf of the re-wilded fields. Grubbing up by the pigs, trampling by the cattle, browsing by the deer and cropping by the ponies all play their part in letting nature back into the picture.

Some of the perimeter land was still fenced and the grass not let go as elsewhere. Another field was given over to solar panels as they seek to be self sufficient in power. In Tudor and Stuart times the River Adur’s headwaters had been harnessed as ‘furnace ponds’, reservoirs that powered iron making, when the forests of the Sussex weald provided the industry’s raw fuel. I noticed stands of hazel in the woods we passed, formerly coppiced, and wondered if they’ll be harvesting them again in future for charcoal making, producing decorative hurdles etc.

A lady we met dog walking told us that carp are seen in the headwaters of the river while white storks, previously unknown to breed here, are now well established, either in the trees or utilising purpose built platforms dotted about the place. Big increase in a number of species, previously in decline or not seen here for decades, include those of nightingales, turtle doves, peregrine falcons and purple emperor butterflies.

Tree houses are stationed in the magnificent old oaks by the bridle paths and they gave us views over flat fields now sprouting trees, shrubs and flowers. Noticeable were the masses of fleabane in some pastures, alongside scabious, plantain etc. The uncut hedges, with their fund of berries, grow high and wide here, linear woods providing food and shelter, that also act as wildlife corridors.

Willow Carr was evident where the blocking of ditches and drains have resulted in the creation of 78 acres of wetlands. That has brought back even more species of wildlife as well as providing watering places, shelter and food for stock.

The circularity of it all is key. I’ve never seen happier or more contented pigs as these Tamworths, free ranging outdoors in their natural environment. We saw them wallowing & foraging in the waterways and feeding on acorns (pannage) which gives depth and flavour to the meat, sold locally and in the estate shop or by mail order. Likewise for the different beef and venison cuts, which are matured on the bone for tenderness and flavour.

The emerging success of this revolutionary process has allowed the estate to develop a range of eco-tourism offers; from camping and shepherd huts, yurts and bothies to wildlife safaris by all terrain vehicles as well as yoga retreats and wildlife study courses.

The Burrell’s benefit greatly from grant aid by Natural England and government higher stewardship funding and their work has been hugely influential in shaping both public and governmental opinion on nature restoration, carbon capture and soil health, flood prevention, food quality etc. The National Trust and other estates have implemented or plan to launch their own schemes for regenerative farming and nature renewal inspired by Knepp. Current projects involve developing and supporting a cluster group of neighbouring farms to spread interconnectivity for wildlife through a contiguous cross county corridor.

The Knepp castle estate model is not a panacea to fit all UK farmed landscapes but it is a positive exposition of what is possible and gives all who care about nature, farming and the rural environment cause to believe that truly sustainable and balanced ecosystems are achievable. Now the challenge is to extend and broaden the scale of change so that the population at large can benefit and the restoration and regeneration of nature in our country be secured for future generations.

I wrote last year about the ongoing regenerative work by the Bennett family at Middleton North Farm Northumberland inspired by the Burrell’s work..  

Walk on the Greenside

You can find out more about the Knepp project on the website: https://www.kneppestate.co.uk

Isabella Tree’s bestselling book Wilding (2018) eloquently chronicles the Knepp story and is available at your local library or from all good bookshops. A practical follow up book, The Wilding Handbook, is due to be published soon. More about Isabella and her books here: https://www.isabellatree.com/

It was a serendipitous pleasure to visit Petworth and Knepp, back to back. Both estates reveal a lot through form and use about the epochs that created them and the complex interactivity between man and nature that make such landscapes dynamic reflections of society at a particular point in time. I’m looking forward to returning to Sussex in another season, to walk more parts of both estates, and see what else can be discovered.

Took a long overdue trip south recently to visit my brother and sister-in-law in West Sussex. Two delightful interest packed days discovering a contrasting pair of local estates, each of which reflect the ideas and requirements of their dynamic owners and creators, more than two centuries apart.

Petworth House is a 17^th century mansion surrounded by 700 acres of garden and parklands designed for the 2^nd Earl Egremont (1751-1837) by Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown. In the care of the National Trust since 1947, the great house contains the charity’s single largest and most valuable collection of paintings and art works, including twenty paintings by JMW Turner immortalised the place in his work. The earl was a great collector and patron of contemporary artists like Constable, Leslie and Turner, all of whom were at one time or other guests of the gregarious aristocrat, who had several mistresses and numerous illegitimate children. Turner’s accommodation in the mansion was also his painting room with a specially adapted window to allow greater vision of the grounds.

The current Lord Egremont and his family still occupy a wing of the great house and retain ownership of the rest of the 13,500 acre agricultural estate; made up of arable, pasture and mixed woodland managed by tenant farmers and land agents.  

No time to see the treasure house of contents on this occasion. This was a familiar perambulation for Geoff and Dianne exercising their beloved canine Phoebe, but the classic parkland we roamed was reward enough. A fine example of Brown’s work, opening vistas and planting clumps of trees to catch and lead the eye. Petworth’s herd of fallow deer are believed to be the oldest and largest in the country and today number between 700-800. Being used to human company they present gracefully wherever the herd spreads itself, like the chorus in a grand opera. The otherwise unrecorded image of a silhouetted single stag passing slowly under the browse line of a great oak will remain with me.

Some 70,000 tons of clay and soil were shifted by the earl’s extensive workforce to create all the natural seeming curves to please the discerning visitors eye while the park’s meandering 14 miles of wall keep the deer safely enclosed.

We visited on a wind blown moody afternoon that only served to magnificently heighten the key features. I particularly loved the magnificent clumps of sweet chestnut trees, bristling now with spiky autumnal fruit, as well as the huge venerable ancient oaks from Tudor times. Deep fissured trunks blasted by lightning or displaying stumps of lost limbs were particularly arresting in their form and texture.

Another of Brown hallmark is the great reflective lake, complete with viewing terrace and islands with their stone ornaments immersed in greenery. It is home to migrant and resident birdlife, with a flock of Canada geese, grazing swathes of smooth grasslands that align lake and mansion. The swags of great rolling clouds on the day we visited would surely have appealed to Constable, who was renowned for his studies of them. The close mown ground beneath our feet bore recent press marks from the last extensive film set that had been loaded upon it. A major production set in Napoleonic times, we heard it said…Bridgerton perhaps?.

This artfully designed and manicured pleasure grounds, with its wonderful distant views over the South Downs and rolling farmland, continues to offer its visitors rest and recreation. On the other side of the boundary wall the narrow thronged streets of pretty Petworth village is full of antique, craft and book shops alongside restaurants and pubs. The triple attractions of house, grounds and town make for a picture perfect traditional view of southern England and its countryside.

here where the landscape /is a long conversation/and the breeze/a list of the missing/and of the dead/read from the surface/of these stones/that do not forget. (From A Northern Aspect by Paul Farley)

Here in Hadrian’s Wall country you can have endless fun spotting how many buildings have, at one time or another, recycled the component parts of that once mighty edifice.  When the Romans left in 410AD all that precious building resource was up for grabs. Neighbouring farmsteads, churches and fortified sites owe a huge debt to the Roman legionnaires for quarrying, dressing and transporting those millions of whin sill (hard dolerite) and softer sandstone blocks.

A UNESCO world heritage site since 1987, This year marks the wall’s 1,900th birthday and a host of different activities have been taking place along its 76 mile length. My indomitable cousin Quetta, a retired archaeologist from London, was up here recently for a week as part in a ‘Secret Histories’ holiday study group. Based at the Beaumont hotel in Hexham these curious souls were ferried from Wallsend to the Solway, with all manner of stops in between, discovering all there was to know about this famous world heritage site and the extraordinary civilisation that built it. The experts leading the party pointed out other sites of interest that they’d no time in the packed schedule to visit. One of them was Chollerton Church, just down the road from us, and Quetta was keen to visit when she came to stay with us for a few days afterwards, as indeed were we.

The first church of St Giles was a wooden building consecrated in 1097. It was rebuilt in stone in the mid C13th by the local landholding family of Swinburne and sympathetically restored from near dereliction in 1875. Chollerton is a few miles upstream from Cilurnum, the fort at Chesters, where the wall crossed the north Tyne River. Not too far then to haul four handsome pillars to support the roof on the south side of the nave of that new stone church, back in the 1260’s.

Another Roman recycled stone relic was originally an altar dedicated to Jupiter, discovered in the churchyard in 1827. It was turned upside down, re-purposed as a font, which was a little odd really as they already had a font! That one is circular (with a fine Jacobean wooden cover) probably fashioned for the new C13th church. Do the families of infants about to be baptised get to choose which stone receptacle they want used?

A walk around the churchyard revealed high up on the north wall of the chancel a former window blocked with small stone crosses formerly used to mark medieval graves…Were they recycled skywards when the church was restored in the 1870’s I wondered?

The church ground’s other unusual feature was a complete surprise to us. On arriving we’d taken the sign saying ‘Open’ only referred to the church and not to the single storey building by whose old wooden door it hung. So it was a bit of a thrill to step into what was an early C19th church hearse house and stable block. Restored seven years ago, there are illustrated information panels on the wall about the village and its history.

As well as the stalls for horses and bearers coffin carriage, I liked the pattern of drainage rills in the floor and the fact that the building was formerly the village post office.  Today the parish is home to under a thousand people while in 1851 the population was over 5,000. Much of the housing has disappeared, along with all its agricultural and industrial trades.

On leaving we noticed a mile southwards the impressive remains of an unaltered  C15th century bastle (fortified house) known as Cocklaw Tower. This was the former home of feudal landowners the Errington family, some of whose tombs lie in the church. Today all that’s left of the medieval settlement of Cocklaw is a large farm whose modern buildings surround the tower. Unsurprisingly the substantial three storey tower with its vaulted first floor is largely made of recycled Roman stone.