Sunday 3 December 2006

From 1872 to 2006



1872 map of Ewarwoowar (www.old-maps.co.uk)

130+ years later; the Post Boy Inn is now a Little Chef, a small area of woodland opposite has been removed, there are a few new buildings and a wayleave cuts through Cats Wood.

A little work

Saturday 2nd December

1st day doing ‘real work’; clearing space for camping. The site is pretty central (east-west) in the wood and to the south. Char marks show that it was used by (presumably) the previous owners for fires. We clear some small trees and move some previously felled wood, but there’s still plenty more to do. The felled wood is cut and stacked for firewood and smaller trimmings stacked to one side. We also walk a tour of the wood; the stream is now more full with recent rain. Just to the east of the bridge is a pile of feathers (pigeon?) showing the work of what we assume is a fox. Tom and I cut hazel for staffs. We note that there are quite a few sweet chestnut trees blown over (not very recently and mostly still growing), maybe they should have been coppiced earlier. We finish the day picking up a few more bottles.

Sunday 19 November 2006

The Story Begins


Saturday 18th November

The day after we completed purchase on Chick Wood (aka Ewarwoowar). A general visit to look around and familiarise ourselves with what we’ve got. The main trees present are coppice sweet chestnut with oak standards. On the south side (and scattered within the wood) are silver birches; while along the stream gulley at the south are hazel and alder. There is a reasonably sized holly in the south east. In the south west there are some young rhododendrons. Fungi include puffballs, candle snuffs, various bracket fungi and jelly-like orangish ‘blobs’. While we are walking along the south of the wood a red admiral flutters by in the dappled sunshine. We spend some time planning where we could camp, etc. On a map of the wood we mark on the larger oaks along with their circumferences; there are about 35 trees over 50” girth, some up to about 100” (making them 100 years old or possibly more). We collect some litter (mainly plastic milk bottles) which looks pretty old, there’s no sign of people recently using the wood.