The Wonder of Woodlands.


I am making a start on this essay without any great idea as to how I am going to set about it. I think a list of woods that have all been a part of my life to a greater or lesser degree will do to begin with. Here we go.

HOCKLEY WOODS, ANCIENT WOODLAND IN ESSEX.

BECKNEY WOODS, ALSO IN HOCKLEY, PART OF PLUMBEROW.

SCRATCH WOODS, ANCIENT WOODLAND IN MIDDLESEX, PART OF THE ANCIENT FOREST OF MIDDLESEX.

MOAT MOUNT, ORNAMENTAL WOODLAND, MOSTLY PLANTED IN VICTORIAN TIMES.

BARN HILL, PART OF WHICH IS ANCIENT WOODLAND, AND PART ORNAMENTALLY PLANTED.

EPPING FOREST, PART OF A MUCH GREATER FOREST, IT NOW BELONGS TO THE PEOPLE OF LONDON. AMBERSBURY BANKS IS A FAVOURITE [PLACE WITHIN THE FOREST.

STRANS WOOD IN UPPER WHARFEDALE I HAVE KNOWN ONLY RECENTLY. IT IS SMALL BUT LOVELY, also STRID WOOD.

THORPE PERROW ARBORETUM, A MOST PEACEFUL PLACE VISITED ONCE BUT WELL REMEMBERED.

This will hopefully give me some inspiration with which make a start.


From an early age I have delighted in woodland. I suppose the earliest time I could have seen trees in large numbers would have been when I was taken by my mother to the park near our home in Highams Park. I was too young to remember this, there is just a vague memory of ducks on a lake, but it would have stayed in my subconscious, I suppose. We left Highams Park when I was four and moved to Hockley in Essex, where I lived till I was married.

This is where my conscious memories of woodland begin.
I was taken to Epping Forest on a Sunday school trip when I was around five or six years old. Unfortunately my main memory of this day is falling off a donkey. My foot being caught in a stirrup I was dragged along the ground, finishing up with a nasty graze on one of my arms. The trees took a second place that day!
As a young child Hockley woods played a great part in pleasurable outings of exploration. With young friends I wandered through the woods delighting in the great oak trees and the thickly grown remains of past coppicing. My Dad took me for walks and explained about the coppice cutting that had taken place, talks which stayed in my mind and was the beginning of my love of trees. Windflowers starred the ground early in the Spring, delicately stirring to the slightest breeze.
There were also huge ants, not so lovable. Their nests were mountains of tiny twigs and whatever else was suitable for them. They got in the way of picnics. I have an idea they were originally put there as food for pheasants. The pheasants were gone and so were the humans who preyed on them, but the ants were flourishing.
While going to Hockley Council School my friend, Jean, and I were allowed to have a picnic meal in the woods once a week, in the summer, of course. We sat in what I thought were old sand pits surrounded by trees, not far from the school, delighting in the short period of freedom in the school day. On other days of the week we went home for our dinner.
There was also the pleasure of eating the sweetest of chestnuts from the massive chestnut trees that grew near to the school playground. There was holly to collect at Christmas time, holly that seemed all the more festive due to the search in the depths of the woods for bushes with berries.
I shall insert a poem here, one that I wrote which I hope gives something of the special feeling that woods had in my childhood heart.


Woodland

How I loved to climb a tree,
To sit up the top of my leafy palace,
Queen of my glorious woodland,
A magical faery world.
A stream ran rippling through the wood,
Steeply banked and deeply pooled,
Bordered with flowers according to their season.
Windflowers, celandines starred the banks with Spring
And my memory with enchantment.


Beckney Woods is in Hockley, overlooking the site of the battle in Canewdon between Edmund Ironside, the son of Aethelred the Unready, and Canute, the Dane. This was often a place for a family walk after Sunday tea. This wood was at its best in Spring when the leaves were pale green and pleated, and the bluebells were even more beautiful than I have seen elsewhere.
Ambersbury Banks in Epping Forest is a place that holds a fascination for me. Maybe it was the place where Boudicca and her followers fought their last battle, maybe it was not. More likely is the theory that it was an Iron Age hill fort that had nothing to do with the Queen of the Iceni. Whatever is the truth of the matter, I feel an atmosphere of the past. Who were the people who built this embankment? What would they think of us, people of modernity? Do their ghosts haunt the spot?
There are great trees now where there must have been open country for there to be any possibility of a battle such as Boudicca and the Iceni fought against the Romans. It is a place to walk and wonder.
One of the most beautiful of woods that I have been in recently is Strid Wood in the grounds of Bolton Abbey, Yorkshire. There are a great many enormous limes and oaks. It was Spring when I walked down to the Strid, that dangerous place where the river Wharfe forces its way hrough through a narrow space in the limestone rocks, and the woodland was at its best. The leaves were so fresh and delicate, bluebells carpeted the ground and scented the air, and whichever way one turned the view was unbelievably lovely. Yet, in spite of saying this, I do believe that if I walked there in the summer the warm fecundity would entrance me, the autumn would cast its own spell, and even in the winter the stark branches would have their own bleak charm.
Woodland near home never loses its fascination, no matter how often the walks take place. They are never the same, Three Middlesex woods immediately come to my mind. They are not extensive, but each is different to the other.
First of all we go to Scratch Wood, which is ancient woodland, and then to Moat Mount, an ornamental woodland planted during the 19th century. The third is Barn Hill which is partly ancient woodland and partly ornamental. Scratch Wood, which was being taken over by rhododendrons, unwisely planted during the last century, is now being cared for. With most of the rhododendrons cleared the vista through the trees is magnificent. To gaze between the trees and down the hill to the admittedly rather small stream is gorgeous. At the far end of the wood there is an area of rhododendrons allowed to grow and flower, so gloriously, in the Spring.
On the other side of the road you can enter Moat Mount Wood. Here there are numbers of simply enormous sequoias, planted in the 19th century. Amongst them there are the Wellingtonia and the Coast redwood. They tower an immense distance up to the sky, nothing like as huge as their American cousins, of course, but to my unaccustomed eyes they are unbelievably tall. There is a lake and interesting tree trails to follow. Besides the sequoias there is a deodar, and turkey oak, Holm oak, Irish yew and an avenue of hornbeams. There is swamp cypress and Norway maple and, of course, the common yew. There are picnic tables if needed, and wide areas of grass for the very young to run about; altogether a very successful suburban wood.
Now we go several miles to get to Barn Hill. Here we have the trees of ancient woodland, and also ornamental trees planted in more modern times. Wellies are often needed here as there is plenty of mud after a spell of wet weather. Wild roses grow in profusion and are a delight to the eye. There is a good sized pond where a heron often stands. Service trees have been planted by the local authority, also crab apples, along one side of the wood there is the remains of an ancient track. There has not been too much 'tidying up'.
A little way up the hill there is an avenue of old poplars, probably planted in the 19th century. The way between them
is very rough (and, of course, muddy at times) but I find it enchanting. As I make my way along I wonder who walked there when the trees were first planted. Over one side there is a fine view of Wembley, though I must say that I prefer the parts where I can imagine I am in the middle of nowhere. I must confess that it is not too easy to imagine as the noise of nearby traffic is constant!
Noise is a problem in town woods, naturally. It can't be otherwise. Even so, these woodlands have the genuine leafy, fungus scent, woodland flowers, the hidden life that we so seldom see, and my great love, the trees themselves. One can close ones ears and delight in woodland, even when near to the busiest of roads.
Back to Yorkshire where there is Thorpe Perrow Arboretum to be wandered through and enjoyed. Conifers flourish in this plantation, and in the Autumn the varied colour of the deciduous trees is lovely. It does not pretend in any way to be a natural woodland and is none the worse for that. It is a place of peace I could happily return to.
Strans Wood in Upper Wharfedale is ancient and proud of it. Growing on the side of a steep fell, the trees are wide spread, and to look through the wood towards the river Wharfe, far below, is a delight. On the way to the wood the walker passes numerous ruined dwellings of peoples of the distant past. Memories of having walked up there are something to be thankful for.
This has been a very imperfect effort at getting some of my feelings about woods onto paper. I hope that anyone who may possibly read this will forgive me.