This is the third and final blog about recent rambles around the south London suburbs of Forest Hill (Borough of Lewisham), Dulwich (Borough of Southwark) and Streatham (Borough of Lambeth), discovering how remnants of the former working landscape between Croydon and the Thames, known as the Great North Wood, have been redefined and restored within the public domain as sustainable green spaces, all of them less than seven miles from the centre of London. My memories of Streatham are of tedious car journeys along a relentless commercial highway, relieved by a visual breakout by parkland before bricks and mortar closed in again. This time a whole new vision of the place opened up when we visited that patch of green glimpsed decades ago, which I now know to be Streatham Common.

Streatham means the hamlet on the street. That high road – the A23 – has never been anything else but constantly busy since the time of the Romans when it linked their southern coast settlements with Londinium. Today, after some 300 years of enclosure and intense development just 66 acres (27 Hectares) remain. Although no longer used to graze stock and horses or provide fuel, the common is still highly valued by its contemporary commoners, albeit for different reasons. Protected by act of parliament the place was designated as a local nature reserve (LNR) in 2013. As an urban green lung it combines all the things you might expect of a park – refreshments, toilets, paddling pool, playground etc. – with countryside landscape features of meadow, woods and rides, stream and orchard, plus great views over a wide sweep of south London.

Tucked away within the leafy summit of the common are the historic Rookery Gardens. Their origin lies in the mid C17th discovery and subsequent development of mineral springs on this part of the common. Wealthy Londoners flocked to fashionable Streatham Spa to drink or bathe in the waters to help cure or alleviate their various ailments. By the 1780’s formal gardens and parkland had been laid out around the wells and a large house known as ‘The Rookery’ built.

By 1912 Streatham had developed its suburban infrastructure and the private gardens were under threat of housing development so local residents led a campaign to raise the money to buy it themselves. In association with the then London County Council, the mansion was demolished and its site landscaped. The Rookery’s gardens were restored and extended to include existing woodlands. The five acre site opened to the public in July 1913.

We entered the gardens by the cheerful bustling café on the common where we later enjoyed a great outdoor lunch. Grasslands and formal terrace at the top of the slope yield wide ranging views south while wide railed steps lead down past a magnificent Cedar of Lebanon to the formal gardens and woodlands below.

The old English garden with its traditional cottage style planting in geometric beds separated by stone flagged pathways and trellises was originally part of the walled kitchen garden supplying the big house. That gives way to a sheltered wide avenue with broad beds, the white garden, named for its floral displays, leading to a rock garden where the stables once stood. I particularly liked the dell outside the formal part that features a recently planted orchard and fenced off mature deciduous woodlands with lush undergrowth, through which a narrow stream runs.

In the English country garden is the original location of the mineral well shaft and a modern cover has been added. Above that a series of smaller garden rooms have interconnected ponds, replete with lillies and water hawthorn, teeming now with scores of newts and thousands of tadpoles. Toddlers and grown ups were thrilled at the sight of life in the waters. Later, as the humans moved off, a canny rook flew in and positioned itself in the shallows to effectively scoop up scores of the little wrigglers in its snapping beak.

My cousin, our weekend host, had never heard of the Rookery Gardens before so for me to introduce her to it was an extra pleasure. It’s an enchanting, in many ways surprising spot, neatly combining the formal with the informal and clearly much loved by the dedicated band of community volunteers, supported by borough of Lambeth rangers, who have invested in and maintained this wonderful community asset for all to enjoy.  

Where we were staying in Forest Hill was one of 2,000 built in a joint operation between the Dulwich estate and the volume house builder Wates between 1957 and 1969. The high spec architectural design and green setting applied to all the homes constructed at this time around the 1,500 acre estate. My cousin’s home was one of many linked terraces built on the site of five large Victorian villas. Subsequently many of the trees surrounding the enclave are of some vintage. Copper beeches, pines, sycamores and ash make for a dense green curtain at the end of back gardens, blocking out traffic noise and pollution but depriving them of full sunlight and harbouring the usual urban garden menaces, from feral pigeons to grey squirrels. Something I’d not clocked before were the bags at the bottom of recently planted trees. Closer examination revealed them to be self regulating reservoirs supplying water to sustain them at this crucial stage.

Dulwich was once a landscape of farms, woodland and commons, part of the Great North Wood, the property of the Bermondsey priory in the middle ages. The name for the settlement, dating back to Saxon times, means ‘Dill Farm’. The Dulwich Estate traces its history back to 1605 when the great actor and wealthy businessman Edward Alleyn (1566-1626) bought the manor for £5,000 from its post Reformation owner, going on on to found and oversee the charitable trust that bears his name, endowing a school, almshouses and chapel. Alleyn and his father-in-law and business partner Philip Henslowe were the greatest entertainment impresario of the age running both the Rose Theatre at Bankside and the Fortune on Finsbury Fields. Their individual account books provide an invaluable insight into the workings of Elizabethan and Jacobean theatre. Alleyn was also ‘Master of the king’s games of bears, bulls and dogs’ while as an actor he performed the title roles in the premieres of Marlowe’s plays Tamburlaine the Great, Doctor Faustus & The Jew of Malta.

The alms houses and chapel (where Alleyn is buried) still stand and across the road from them are the grand gates giving entrance to another part of the estate inheritance – Dulwich Park. Originally five fields of farmed meadowland, it became a public park in 1890. I loved seeing the lines of ancient oaks – original boundary features of vanished hedges and lanes – standing broad and elegant in the Victorian setting of walkways and shelters. Later we watched the ever pushy pigeons hustling for food where folk were feeding the goldeneye ducks, moorhens and coots on the boardwalk through the central lake by the densely wooded island retreat where the birds can nest.

Another delightful corner of Dulwich village is the new orchard and wildflower meadow on the former playground of the old grammar school. It was established on its three quarters of an acre site in 2019 to celebrate the 400^th anniversary of Alleyn’s charitable foundation and is very much part of the re-greening agenda that the estate promotes across its operation. Other pocket orchards are planned in years to come. The estate also lets out some 40 acres of allotments as well as a dozen playing fields for public use.

I was curious to note as we drove by it, the former millpond in front of Dulwich College, now totally surrounded by trees and shrubs and whose surface is completely carpeted with pond weed. It looked very different when painted by Camille Pissarro in 1871. In an age where the horse was the base unit of transport numerous roadside places for them to drink would have been commonplace. As every pond wants to commit suicide when left to its own devices (i.e. it silts up and fills) I wondered whether letting re-wilding run its course in our time might be counterproductive to maintaining a healthy water ecosystem. I also suspect that any public body clearing vegetation of any kind automatically risks protest and disapproval by the public. Even if that were not the case, easier public access would automatically increase the likelihood of someone drowning and all that implies for insurance, signage and prevention. Who knows, fifty years hence it might well be a mill and pond again, generating clean renewable energy!

Living as we do in England’s least populated county it’s always something special to get on the train and immerse ourselves in the cut and thrust of London’s city life. Our most recent visit was last weekend, to catch up with family living there, which fell into different phases for this blog. Here’s the first post, about our walks around Forest Hill.

Once upon a time a large chunk of what is now south London, stretching from Croydon to Camberwell, was known as the Great North Wood. Its extent in medieval times was some 20 square miles (52 sq. km), consisting of ancient woods, wooded commons and villages. At its productive peak (up to the early C 19^th) these Surrey hills were at the centre of a thriving economy which provided charcoal to fuel the capital’s ovens and forges, timber for its houses and Royal shipyards at Deptford and oak bark for the extensive tanning industry centred in Bermondsey. The Industrial revolution replaced charcoal with coal and with the capital’s population boom, enclosure acts and the coming of the railways the Great North Wood began to fragment and disappear, giving way to a sprawl of suburban villas, roads and shops.

The memory of places live on in names like Norwood (‘north wood’) Forest Hill, and Penge (‘edge of wood’). What’s left – in the form of woods, commons, gardens and parks – is now better protected and looked after than ever before; an invaluable recreational facility and interconnected series of nature reserves.

In Forest Hill we went walk about guided by my cousin, who has lived here for the last 40 years. We strolled through a patchwork of restored meadows, under old specimen trees and by high hawthorn field hedges, all combining to screen and subdue the sound of heavy traffic on the South Circular Road, AKA the A205, streaming by outside the building and grounds that dominate the hill top ridge here – the Horniman Museum and Gardens.

One of the newly enriched professionals who made healthy heights of Forest Hill their new home in the late Victorian era was the Quaker Tea Merchant Frederick Horniman.

An extensive world traveller, attending to the expanding family business (est.1826), he had amassed a huge collection of natural history, cultural artefacts and musical instruments. They initially went on display in the family home but the collection eventually got too big to accommodate so the indefatigable philanthropist commissioned the daringly modern arts & crafts style institution to house it that bears his name. The building opened free of charge to the public in 1901. The 15 acres of gardens and grounds opened earlier, in 1895, the same year that Frederick became a Liberal MP. Lots of additions and changes since to both house and grounds to reflect society’s expectations and last year the Horniman won the prestigious Arts Fund museum of the year award.

‘Second Hand Sunday’ is an outdoor market held in the grounds and gardens, which also boasts new hedging by the main road, medicinal garden, butterfly house, dry gardens, bandstand etc. After sampling what was on offer and enjoying the impressive view over the massed high rise towers of central London we ambled down the steep park slopes, past dog walkers, children playing and picnickers to the tree lined edge and nature reserve on its northern boundary.

The Horniman nature trail is the oldest in London and was originally a section of the Crystal Palace and South London Railway, AKA ‘The High Line’, which opened in 1865 and closed in 1954. After closure this half a mile stretch was left unmanaged and reverted to woodland and scrub. Dividing Horniman parkland from terraced housing, it has been managed as a nature reserve since 1972 and the linear site features a pond, log piles and wild flower meadow. Visitors can discover, at different seasons, gatekeeper butterflies, common toadflax, jays and many members of the tit family.

The painting of Lordship Lane station by Camille Pissarro gives a sense of the railway back in 1871. The great French impressionist painter lived nearby at Crystal Palace then with his family, in self imposed exile, during the Franco Prussian War.

The High Line, further on its course to the tunnel that emerged at Crystal Palace, split the remaining remnants of the Great North Wood even more. Now that the old line is a public footpath, Sydenham Hill and Dulwich woods have been re-united as one entity (and largest extant section of the GNW). It’s custodian is the London Wildlife Trust, which has combined forces with other public bodies and charities to take advantage of government grants and allowances to conserve nature and promote public engagement while also restoring and creating new habitats to make a living landscape relevant to the needs of both people and wildlife. Very impressive it is too and shows what can be done when the collective will is there.

We discovered the unobtrusive entrance to Cox’s Walk, an unpaved track parallel to the old railway path, dating from the early C18th, and marvelled at the newly emerged greenness of the dappled canopy above and dense undisturbed undergrowth below. Tall metal railings painted black either side of the steep narrow path have clearly played a part in that. Designed no doubt to guard against illegal tipping and ingress from people and dogs, thus shielding the site for natural renewal.

We left Cox’s Walk at a junction to follow a desire path that emerged out of the wood, onto open lawns round blocks of council flats, to cross a busy road and into the quiet residential close where we were staying.

Footnote: Frederick & Rebekah Horniman’s oldest child Annie (1860-1937) was a leading figure in the development of modern British Theatre. One of the first women to graduate from the Slade School of Art, she used her considerable inheritance to work with WB Yeats and GB Shaw to co-found and produce for the Abbey Theatre Dublin between 1904 – 1910. She then funded the building and development of The Gaiety in Manchester, the first theatre to be run as a repertory. That Frank Matcham designed building became the base for premiering realistic dramas of working class life by locally based playwrights like Harold Brighouse & Stanley Houghton. The Abbey went on to become Ireland’s National Theatre while the Gaiety was demolished in 1959 to make way for an office block.

…where my blossom’d pear-tree in the hedge
Leans to the field and scatters on the clover
Blossoms and dewdrops—at the bent spray’s edge…

From Home Thoughts From Abroad / Browning

Took a break from gardening the other day when a strange sight on the road caught my eye. A woman leading what I thought was a donkey, but was in fact a mule. The young woman was called Zoe and the mule Falco. I wasn’t the only person to being drawn by this eye catching sight. A big man in a land cruiser hauling a horse box pulled up while we were talking to offer them a place to stay that night.

I walked with them awhile and discovered that the pair were doing the return leg of a fundraiser for a campaign called ‘Walk for Earth’ to support a proposed international law to protect the Earth from ecocide (“killing the environment”) If passed, this law would protect ecosystems anywhere in the world from large scale damage or destruction. It would be a steer for business, industry and government funding away from what destroys the living world, and towards what restores and protects it. More about it here: https://walkforearth.co.uk

The pair had walked from Oxford to Loch Lomond and were now on the return leg of their journey, a combined distance of some 1,000 miles. I made a very modest contribution and am pleased to see at the time of writing that Zoe has exceeded her target of £12,800. I think the distinctive and inspiring duo must have made a lot of friends on the way. Two primary schools for instance had hosted them for a talk and hand loom weavers were working on a tapestry.

Fruit blossom time is upon us at last. First the free standing damson (above) by the kitchen garden, then the oh-so-pretty pear in a tub out front and finally the cordoned James Grieve apple on the sheltered south wall of the house.

I continue to make small changes to the ponds I love so much. Have purloined some wild watercress from a neighbour’s spring where it grows in profusion. Not that we’d ever eat it – the danger of ingesting liver fluke or other nasties is too great – but it will, when confined to a pot parked in the margins, make for great cover in the new pond.

The frogs who call the old pond home always amuse me. One day, I caught four full grown ones all of a cuddle in a dark cave like pocket under an edge stone. They quickly dive back into the water when the stone is lifted and they’re exposed, and who can blame them.

Our brilliant builder is back to do a last little job, the one that gives all of us the greatest pleasure…re-roofing the old playhouse AKA ‘The Playhouse Café’. We’ve recycled the old Coraline (tar coated) sheets that were on the garage/workshop roof. They should extend the working life of an institution much loved by all the youngest visitors to the Corner House down the years.

The new pond has already attracted newts, which is what I was hoping. Have also spotted a frog. Marginal plants I’ve set there include water avens, ragged robin and watercress. The floating leaves of watercress are a particular favourite for female newts to wrap their eggs in for protection from predators and this plant has attracted their attention as a hide out too. I’ve seen a pregnant newt on one occasion and what I took to be a male close by. As in previous years, in the original pond, they appear to be palmate as opposed to smooth newts. Palmate males have webbed back feet and the species prefer ponds in more acidic soils, like ours here in the hills.

Had a treat yesterday when we saw through the kitchen window a long tailed field mouse (wood mouse) inside the bird feeder feasting on the fat balls I’d put there earlier. Interestingly when both a sparrow and a blue tit turned up to feed. Interestingly both birds kept their distance and didn’t want to go anywhere near the interloper. I stepped outside to try and getting closer for a photograph but its keen hearing had it flee before I got anywhere near. You can see from the picture that a skilled climber like this mouse can easily navigate the boughs of a lilac tree I’ve since moved the feeder to a higher, more slender branch which should put it beyond the rodent’s reach.

We had a fabulous treat last night on hearing a snuffle and a shuffle. By the lean to on the yard side of the house there was…a hedgehog! It’s the first time we’ve seen one this year, although their distinctive dark twisted droppings have been found elsewhere in the garden. Over the years I’ve made our patch as hedgehog friendly as possible. In previous years a hedgehog has hibernated in lodgings provided deep in the largest of our garden copses, but this past winter sadly there was no taker.  Hopefully this visitor will stick around and we’ll have more chances to observe its nocturnal behaviour. With hedgehog numbers in the UK still in serious decline we’re conscious of the biggest threat our animal faces, death on the road outside. Not that it’s a busy carriageway, quite the contrary, it’s a typical twisting country lane, but people tend to drive fast and hedgehogs have no road sense. Curling up into a ball on the highway usually proves fatal.

It was a shock encounter with a hare on another lane last week that reminded me just how vulnerable so many mammals are to being killed or injured when crossing roadways. In this case it was too late to break or swerve when an animal suddenly broke cover in front of the vehicle I was driving en route to see friends. We felt a bump but saw no body. Hopefully the hare was just shocked or injured and able to move off with hope of recovery. The incident was upsetting and prompted me to help make amends in the best possible way I could by joining the Hare Preservation Trust. It’s a voluntary run charity and membership costs £15 p.a. http://hare-preservation-trust.com/

Every garden should have at least one compost bin. We’ve expanded over the years to three in number. One of them currently has a resident in the shape of a field vole. These little rodents are the most abundant of mammals in Britain and are key to the food chain. They don’t hibernate but do moult. The tails of the field vole are shorter than those of bank voles and both species are a lot smaller than their cousins, the endangered water voles. Our vole (who I speak softly to every time I deposit another load of peelings, apple cores, crumpled paper bags etc) has got used to my appearances and does not immediately disappear or burrow out of sight, but holds still and watches me. In the last week or so she’s been weaving her nest of dark stalks in amongst the offerings. Slowly it rises as the little creature readjusts levels under the cover of a square of covering carpet, below the box’s top.  

An Easter Sunday ramble of just two miles feels a lot more when half of it’s in forest and you have to divert round fallen trees. All well worth it though for the interesting sidelines and fine views provided at journey’s end. Falstone is a small village at the head of the north Tyne River where it leaves Kielder Water, the huge reservoir created in the 1970’s surrounded by some 153,000 acres (62,000 hectares) of commercial forestry, making Kielder the largest man-made forest in Europe.

We started this circular stroll from the village through an archway onto fields. This archway is a railway bridge, an architectural remnant of the old Border Counties Railway (1866-1958) I’ve written about previously, which was once a vital lifeline ferrying all manner of goods and passengers.

Leaving the lane we made a staggered ascent of the Falstone burn’s narrow valley, threading through a mix of conifers, with small waterfalls gracing its sharp descent through sandstone dense with moss and scattered with pinecones, brash and peeled bark. Even here in the gloom there were echoes of the land’s former moorland setting – straggly fronds of heather either side of the path.

Pines and spruce suddenly gave way to birch woods. Lots of ground hugging hard fern, an indicator of ancient woodlands, growing in profusion here. Coffee coloured bracket fungus (birch polypore) on some of the older trees in process of decay. A common country name for it was ‘razorstrop fungus’ as the rubbery leathery surface was used to sharpen cutthroat razors and other bladed tools!

Having gained the heights further progress was halted by a slew of tree trunks across the bridleway. Yet another reminder of the damage wrecked by Storm Arwen eighteen months since. So extensive the damage done then and so vast the forest rights of way like this have still not been cleared and not likely to be so for a while yet.

Undaunted we carefully zig-zagged a course down the valley side to cross the little stream and various drainage dykes to pick up the level line of what we took to be the track on the other side. Dense spongy moss giving way underfoot, with clambering over fallen boughs, we eventually made it. Relieved to come across no more obstacles as track transformed to stone bedded access road, following the contours of forested Hollows hill.

Primroses breaking through the wraithes of dead winter foliage on one side, curiously patterns of multi-coloured lichens on stones the other side, in one place embraced in the spreading arms of Juniper. All along the stony verge tiny sitka spruce and larch lined the way, like dandelions would along a lowland lane side.

Finally the mass of trees clear enough to reveal the dam and a glimpse of water beyond. The statistics are impressive. Kielder Water is 7miles long, some 158 feet deep and holds 444,000 million gallons of water. The North Tyne shines brightly in otherwise dull overcast sky as it escapes to run away eastward.

Dropping downhill on a bridleway from one forestry road to another we come upon a melancholy site. The remains of Hawkhope farm, perched high here on the fell overlooking Falstone, now shot through with self sown trees.

A tragic act surely to allow a large traditional farmhouse, cottage, stable, byre and hayshed to be wiped off the map at some point following the Forestry Commission’s purchase of the property and its land in the mid 20^th Century.

A long lost gateway, mossed over rocks on flat foundational bedrock and some brick steps are all that remain to hint of it ever existing. The stunning view the place and its inhabitants once enjoyed does though remain for anyone else to still enjoy today.

Back in the village we amble through the churchyard of St Peter, the third church dedicated on the site, dating from 1892. The first was in the early 18^th Century and some fine table tombs and strongly graphic gravestones from that period grace the neatly tended graveyard. Bluebells line the south walkway, intermingling freely with the gravel pathway. A lamp adorns a simple gateway arch. The former traditional farm buildings next door are now very smart self- catering Air B&B apartments. If Hawkhope farm been spared demolition I suspect it may have eventually undergone a similar transformation.

Time for a refreshing pint and a packet of Seabrook’s crisps in ‘The Black Cock’, Falstone’s village pub named for the once common, now rare gamebird, the black grouse. Even at 3pm it’s a popular purveyor of generously portioned Sunday lunches. We make a mental note to come sample another Sunday before departing to enjoy a leisurely drive, following the beautiful river homewards.

The final leg of the journey has us pass one of our local burns where a tributary joins in a sequestered valley and I get a two second glimpse of a duck afloat on the waters which I can only describe as being compiled of the spare parts of all other ducks you can name. I’ve seen them before, at the London Wetland Centre with the grandchildren last spring. Research reminds me of their name, Mandarin ducks. Pairs mate for life so they’re seen as symbols of everlasting love. Introduced to England from the far east as an exotic eyecatcher on landed estates, they started to escape confinement in greater numbers by the mid 20th Century and have been slowly spreading across the UK ever since.

Bound by near roadless swathes of borderland conifer forests to north and east, Hadrian’s Wall and the Longtown Brampton road to the south and the Carlisle to Hawick A7 highway to the west is the remotest corner of Cumbria. Running right through it, to join the tidal border Esk at the Solway, is the River Lyne. Its rapid peat filled waters cut a snaking course through sandstone and its steep banks and remote location have earned it the touristy teasing title of ‘Hidden River’. Lyne in Gaelic means pool or waterway and there are numerous other rivers and lakes with Lynn or Lin in their names scattered through the north and west of the country.

A few years back an enterprising Cumberland dairy farming couple designed and built log cabins on their land here overlooking a particularly attractive stretch of the Lyne. Later they added a log barn for weddings and other events plus a log built restaurant with picture windows and wood burning stoves. In partnership with a resident local chef they set out to woo residents and tourists alike with eclectic, hearty and imaginative menus. A rave write up by Carlisle born reviewer and broadcaster Grace Dent helped boost their reputation nationwide.

Last weekend our Cumbrian based friends invited us over to help discover both food and location on what turned out to be the first official day of spring. Getting there in the first place was a challenge due to the perils of navigating unknown winding lanes through what Ms Dent in her review dubbed ‘miles of rolling green nothingnesss’. We eventually made it and enjoyed a superb Sunday lunch in good company.

Three hours later, replete and needing that promised exercise, we set off upstream to walk a circular four mile section of the hidden valley.

Parking at Stapleton village hall we cut across particularly boggy fields (it had rained prodigiously the day before) before descending to the river Lyne, heard before seen, in dense tree cover. Ferns thriving in the cruck of tree branches and beds of moss on bark and stone indicates the dampness levels here through most of the year.

An elegant footbridge spanned the river, proudly displaying its makers seal. Our journey the other side soon brought us to steep sided former coppice woodlands bisected by a series of rivulets, which made progress along the indistinct muddy path potentially perilous in places.

We eventually emerged at height among mature broad leafed trees which gave a fine view over meadows cupped in a wide bend of the river where Roe deer were grazing. Our presence caused them to make their escape, white tails bobbing furiously, with prodigious leaps over fences and hedges.

More woodland slopes with celandine, dogs mercury and dense mats of a dominant ground hugger I later discover is Greater Wood Rush, a shade loving plant of acidic soils well at home in woods. We eventually came to a farm housing cows & calves, perched on the valley edge, with an organic side line, growing fruit and veg in a brace of polytunnels.

Soon we came upon a cottage with a tidy kitchen garden and poultry in the dell where a side stream entered the Lyne. The cheery householder was burning wood and waste while his geese were living up to their reputation as guard animals by escorting us through their domain with a chorus of honks.

Now back on a concrete access track we could see through the bare trees where the two feeder branches of the River Lyne – termed white and black – converge. A lifebelt indicated a swimming spot in the newly widened waterway. I smiled to see a butterbur, which so loves damp spots, poking its purple coloured flower heads above the soft ground.

The track joined the public highway where we turned back to cross, in turn, both branches of the exuberant young river. Curious to note the long extended stone walled parapets of the bridge. Indicated to us this design must act as a barrier to the road getting flooded.

Following the lane up we climbed steadily out of the valley back into the undulating pastureland. Sheep and ponies, thinking we were carrying fodder, tracked our progress and piled in at gates as we passed in hopes of sustenance.

My walking companion, who knows these things, pointed out the ‘Cumberland dyke’ structure of road verge hump, drainage dyke, bank topped with hedge. This stretch was nicely maintained for good off road drainage with primroses and wood anemone emerging along the sheltered bankside. Who doesn’t love these early spring arrivals? Anemone an indicator of ancient woodland, vegatively slow spreading, delicately beautiful and the ‘prima rosa’ living up to its name.

At the incline’s T Junction another fine old Cumberland County Council road sign greeted the eye. Turning right here on the home stretch brought us along what must once have been a drove road. It ran long and straight with wide verges for cattle to graze as they made their journey from the borders to markets in Carlisle or Penrith. We passed on our left an old building which was once a pub, where drovers and countrymen could slake their thirst, but is now a private house.

After bidding adieu we followed our friends car out of the area, glad for the guidance and happy to have discovered more about an out of the way place not so far from where we live but in other ways a seeming world away. A week later and I imagine the flowers we saw emerging will be well on its way to greet the spring in their hidden valley homeland.

A long held ambition of mine has been to create a second wildlife pond in the garden, next to the original One I built in 2016. I’ve finally got round to doing as winter loosened its grip and spring is making its presence felt here in the hills.

This new pond is a bit smaller and more compact than the old one. I’ve stepped it to house marginal plants all around the edges, with the deepest part reserved for lillies at the centre. Some existing iris and brooklime transplanted for a start.

It’s hard work digging into thick impervious clay but that also means the excavation holds its shape well, unlike sandy or light soil which does not. Calculating how much liner’s required is never easy, but of course you need to have more, not less. Glad to say my generous length wise surplus is going to a family member to line a little pond she’s creating in her town garden.

The plan was to run two interconnected garden hosepipes from the two nearest house water butts to fill the pond. Unfortunately, despite looking high and low, I could only lay hands on one pipe. Argh! What to do? Improvise of course!

Found lengths of spare plastic drain and guttering racked in the garage and detached a further short length from the west porch. This got me to the generous apron of spare EPDM pond lining material. Gravity did the rest. Bit more ingenuity needed to empty the second water butt which was further away from the pond but I managed it. Just. 

I’d not properly checked levels with the spirit level prior to filling so some last minute bulking up of edges with excavated clay was called for. Last December’s excavations to replace our spring fed domestic supply (https://stephentomlin.co.uk/2022/12/06/waterworks/) meant there was a stock of unearthed stones about. These I collected in the wheelbarrow to weigh down the liner round the perimeter, thus stabilising as well as hiding it. A couple of nice flat stones made ideal kneeling points for anyone to deal with plants, see what’s going on in the water, net leaves or whatever.

Every wildlife pond needs a beach for amphibian access and for birds to drink and bathe. This pond’s beach is steeper than the former and I’ve pinched pebbles that could be spared from it to provide this essential feature. The lowest point on the pond edge is next to the beach and run off after rain is diverted away, under stones, towards the field beyond. Surrounding plants like the boggy ground here too. Another pond essential is an adjacent shelterbelt that logs and branches can provide. Last December’s diary entry (https://stephentomlin.co.uk/2022/12/03/wood-work/) recorded the felling of an alder and a willow by the kitchen garden. Tree limbs from this operation I’ve used to both secure the liner and provide hiding places for amphibians and other small beasts that use the pond. These logs and branches, as they slowly rot, have the potential to provide excellent over wintering quarters.

It’s just a matter now of restocking with more aquatic plants when they arrive next month in the nurseries. Meanwhile, to help raise oxygen levels and give shade I’ve borrowed generously from the original pool’s varied stock of submerged waterweeds.

The view from the Corner House northwards is one bounded by the fell that separates us from the big village, while to the south the horizon is defined by a sandstone ridge. The highest and most dramatic part of that scar is Ravensheugh Crags. Easily accessible from a long straight lane that runs along its foot, the crags are popular with climbers. Its extensive face offers some 134 documented climbing routes, from 26 to 79 feet (8 to 24 m) high. Our interest though was not the rocks, quietly imposing as they are, but what lies half hidden beyond its ridge

This was only the second time I’d set foot up there and we were keen to discover more about its important Bronze Age history (circa 2,000 – 600BC) by seeking out the Goat Stones. This name derives from the Saxon ‘gyet stanes’ or ‘wayside stones’. In former days cattle were driven to market along ridgeways so a track may indeed have once ran along here before the current public footpath. The Goatstones is a four-poster stone circle and the stones measure some 30 ins in height bedded approximately 13ft apart. What makes them significant are the numerous cup and ring markings, small depressions in the stone, and they’re the most southerly examples of prehistoric ‘rock art’ known in Britain. Most cup and ring markings on four-poster stone circles are found in Scotland, Perthshire in particular.

It’s a site crying out for further excavation and interpretation. Invaluable surveying work was undertaken by the Tynedale North of the Wall Archaeology Group a decade ago, which achieved a lot with limited resources. Reading about their findings and conclusions whets the appetite to know more. In the immediate area of rough grazing and peatbog around the Goatstones they recorded and mapped at least 16 scattered single stones with markings, evidence of both enclosed and unenclosed settlements, stone rows, cairns and remains of fired mounds from the Bronze Age. This high ground may well have had some special significance as a ceremonial site, and was possibly a sacred burial ground.

The land immediately behind the crags is bounded by a single strand of barbed wire fencing, a barrier to cattle but easily evaded by sheep and people. Scarred and fissured areas indicate the remains of quarrying in the not too distant past. At its far end the final fence post has provided the perfect look out for a raptor of some description. At foot white splashes of dung and dried droppings reveal  crushed and compressed eggshells, fur, claws among other remains of prey.

Vistas from the crags are impressive, whether south toward the (unseen) Roman Wall or north to the border with Scotland. Extra delight for us in being able to spy home amongst the scattered farms and dwellings. This is a distinctive landscape of rolling sandstone ridges and outcrops, with narrow valleys either side deepening into wooded gorges, through which peat laden burns rush out of the great conifer forests to join the big river in its arc of fertile valley to the east.

A banked plantation of mature Scots pines acts as windbreak for nearby Goatstones farm. We passed by it on a gentle descent to pick up the isolated steading’s access track which eventually led us back to the lane and our car.

In 2015 a 120 mile long mountain bike cycle path was created to traverse these successive waves of ridges, appropriately named The Sandstone Way. Running roughly parallel with the Scottish border it zig-zags a course through the heart of Northumberland, from Berwick in the north east to Hexham in the south west. Interestingly someone has pinned a note to the cycleway direction marker near where we’d parked. It’s a plea that must reflect a certain tension between some locals and cyclists. It reads ‘ PLEASE Do NOT vandalise this legal waymark. You are damaging rural tourism.’

A little further, on a narrow side lane heading into the valley (‘Unsuitable for HGVs’) there’s this additional public notice…Be good to return later in the year to see what the verges look like then. I wish NCC luck as the sentiment is sound and that management will match aspiration. Bearing in mind the cyclists’ addendum I also hope that increased flowering on the roadside provides no extra cause for conflict!

PECKING ORDER. As with humans you need to pitch your food offer right to attract particular avian custom. Putting sunflower seeds on the menu alongside peanuts and fat balls has attracted goldfinch, siskin and greenfinch to join our café regulars of tits, robin, dunnock and blackbird. Greenfinch is something of a threatened species due to their susceptibility to trichomonosis, a parasite induced disease that prevents them feeding properly. Our birds hog the food and brook no fellow diners. The stout beak and dark band across the eyes add to their suitably fearless appearance. Away from the feeding area I watch our resident clan of blue tits pairing off to go about their courtship displays, alternately leaping up and down in the air from a branch followed by an exuberant chase, repeated many times. Truly the joys of Spring.

FLUSH WITH SUCCESS. Every five years or so our septic tank at the bottom of the garden needs to be emptied. Jim, our contractor’s gentle giant of a tanker driver, uncurls the suction pipes, links the sections, shifts the concrete slabs that cover the deep lined pit and drops the end in. Engine on and within minutes the load is extracted and will be driven off to the nearest sewage treatment works. We need to replace some of our concrete cover slabs as a few have cracked. Until I’d cleared it for the operation five years of creeping vegetation in the copse had effectively hid the subterranean tank from view.

FIRST AID. Re-staking a young apple tree I inadvertently scarred the trunk with the post banger I was using. To avoid infection I gathered moss from the lawn, sealed and secured in a plastic shower cap, then duck taped round the trunk. Hopefully the damp and mildly antiseptic cleanser will help the tree heal naturally over the year to come.

CUT AND COVER. This month we’ve been clipping with sheers the overwintering dried stalks of perenniels like broad-leaved bellflower. The pieces provide a crude mulch for the bank as they fall. Some long stalks I retain to cut, trim and bind in bunches. The hollow stems will make for ideal ‘bee hotels’ when placed in nooks and crannies round the garden.

DISTANT DRUMS. Loud noises off in our rural neighbourhood might be caused by firings at one of the area’s quarries or activity on the military’s vast training grounds to the north, on the moors. Soft repetitive thuds or echoing retorts have been superceded by louder and more resonant booms in recent weeks. In conversation with folk I hear that Ukrainian armed forces are being trained to use heavy artillery up there. In scattered communities even closer to the firing grounds vibrations and noise levels are severely impacting householders but given the war context they duly bear with the disruption.

ATTIC CAPERS. Our builder Gordon is back to replace the decaying coroline roof of the workshop/garage with a new galvanised green metal one. That means we need to sort the accumulated circus of stuff stored in the outbuilding’s mezzanine loft. In the process we discover that big oil paintings of landscapes have been cannibalised by mice to make their nests. Lots of mouldy old frames, glass and mounts detached and broken up, ready for a trip to the tip, alongside carpet remnants, pin boards, dead electrical equipment, assorted plastics etc. Best quality prints or drawings that can be reframed are retained but most, sadly, we just have to let go.

POND PREP. Spring’s the best time to create a new pond. I’ve surface cleared a level patch some 2 x 3 metres, close to the existing pond at the bottom of the garden. Fun and games assessing how much butyl like liner needed. (Measure length, breadth, depth and add extra for edging). My earlier order got lost at the manufacturers. A helpful phone call got things sorted and now the big heavy roll of EPDM liner lies on the deck outside in front of me as I write, prompting action! Below the topsoil there’s serious clay so it won’t be an easy dig and I await a spell of good weather to begin my labours.

CRIME TIME. I was invited by a local WI branch to reprise a reading given last year in the village’s Town hall of an entertaining crime story, My Oleander, by Kate Ellis. The welcoming members were an appreciative listening audience in the intimate setting of the small village hall where they hold their meetings. They treated us afterwards to a delicious home made Jacobs Join of a supper, with lots of great conversation. Interactions like this that make my heart sing and remind me why I wanted to be an entertainer in the first place and why this is such a good place to live. Great to have Kim with me too, as she caught up with some of the women known from her own farming days here in the valley.

ON THE WING. As the days lengthen and the earth comes slowly back to life the emergence of different life forms continues to surprise. Like drifts of snowdrops, which are always a joy to witness spreading to new locations year on year. When shifting logs in the store I inadvertently disturbed a butterfly that has been overwintering there. A brief open wing moment revealed it to be a peacock. It soon closed up its wings though and hopefully will settle back in its shelter until the true time comes to emerge and fly.

VALENTINE PRINT. Every year the Rheged Visitor Centre off the A66 outside Penrith hosts a print exhibition where some sixty artists work is on display in their extensive gallery space. Part of the Tebay Services family, Rheged has a cinema, shops, café and an adjacent service station. It’s recently had a make over and emerges an even more attractive and welcome visitor facility at the gateway to the north lakes. It’s rare for Kim and I to agree which print in an exhibition is our favourite so when we do (and it’s in the wake of Valentine’s day) then we dive in and buy it. Here’s a detail of ‘Bluebells in a Wood’ by Kent based print maker Sue Scullard. (Print size: 4’ x 5.5’)