A coppice wood bank near Oakridge

The morning started early with a trip to take Helena to school.  Getting up earlier than I would normally means I am more active on these winter days, and today was no exception.  I ended up going to do some shopping for the tofu and stir-fry vegetable supper I would be cooking this evening and headed up to the farm shop in Bisley to get the freshest produce.

The weather was alternating rapidly so that by the time I reached the top of the hills half way to Bisley, it had started to snow.  A buzzard circled low over the field beside the road near to the old Stancombe Cross standing stone so i quickly pulled over, changed lens on the camera nd got out to look over a gate into the field.  Of course the buzzard had long gone down to wards a patch of woodland at the far end of the field.  But I stood anyway waiting for any birds to appear and enjoying the silence of the snow blown hard against my side by the westerly wind.  I did film a crow which had flown down from a pole onto the grass pasture, and caught his take-off  with his black feathers also speckled with white flakes.

But I soon drove on the extra mile to the farm shop, chatted with Sally one of the family that owns the farm, and then decided to go for a rambling drive to see where I ended up.  I drove slowly along the back roads and lanes between Bisley and Chalford, past Bussage and Far Oakridge and headed on to waterLane via Tunley.  All these settlements are quite close together high up on top of the Cotswold hills where agriculture predominates.  But I have noticed how many fields have been converted into horse paddocks which is a reflection of the big leisure industry related to riding that has grown in these wealthier parts of the county.  I stopped a couple of times thinking I met get a blip of the horses, who often were interested by my presence, probably hoping for some attention.  Most of them all had covers over their backs which showed that they probably lived in the fields all the time.

I decided to head a bit further away from these fields towards the head of the valley where the river Frome rises from springs.  After Far Oakridge the lane dropped down to traverse the side of the valley where there os a lot of local landslip caused by the clays losing their grip and sliding down over the limestone, causing a series of steps on the hillsides.  This is also where woodland has been important as well as houses being built with wonderful local views across the beautiful landscape.

I noticed some sheep grazing in a filed and a lamb had got out and was in the road by a gate.  A hundred yards further down the single track lane I stopped and asked two workmen who were building new stone walls at an entrance to a farm further down the hillside.  They said I shouldn't worry as the owners didn't seem to be worried about their stock and that the sheep were often to be seen on the lane. Luckily there was hardly any traffic, and I only saw two cars pass by in half an hour.

I stopped a bit further down the lane as I noticed a woodland bank which interested me as it looked quite old and I wanted to look more closely to work out a bit of the history of the location.  I have always been interested in landscape history having studied geography and economics
to degree level.  But that training gave me no real understanding of the countryside until I discovered the amazing work of Oliver Rackham, who is rightly regarded as one of the foremost chroniclers of the subject in works which will be rightly regarded as classics.

In the picture which doesn't do much justice to the woodbank on the left, you can see the tall beech trees that have survived and kept regrowing as the bank has collapsed over the ages.  The stools are actually enormous and show that as trunks have grown and fallen , new te=runks are constantly replacing them.  Under the shallow roots there are big holes going way back into the ground just below the surface providing interesting habitats for wildlife.  As I thought I found there was an abandoned hazel coppice behind the bank and that it was growing on an area of landslip.  The field on the right of the lane is probably a relatively recent clearing made in the woodland that cover most of these valley slopes, again found on a flatter area formed by a slippage.

I was thinking about all this and wanting to engage with that examination and appreciation of the landscape as I was very sorry to hear that Oliver Rackham had died on the 12th February 2015, aged 75 years.  I had been so looking forward to attending a five day residential course that he was to present in Suffolk in April with my friend and colleague Camilla.  We are both very upset.

If you are interested, this is a good description of Oliver Rackham's amazing life.

His key work is probably 'The History of the Countryside', which I think was first published in about 1985.

This was taken from that book:
'There are four kinds of loss .... there is the loss of beauty, especially that exquisite beauty of the small and complex and unexpected, of frog-orchids or sundews or dragonflies. There is the loss of freedom, of high-ways and open spaces .... There is the loss of historic vegetation, most of which once gone is lost forever ..... I am specially concerned with the loss of meaning. The landscape is a record of our roots and the growth of our civilization. Each individual historic wood, heath, etc. is uniquely different from every other, and each has something to tell us'.