Minsmere – 8th May 2015

31 Sun May 2015

Posted by Clare Pooley in plants, Rural Diary, trees, walking, wild birds

Tags

BBC Spring Watch, black slugs, blackcap, bluebells, Common Vetch, crabapple, Minsmere, oak, oak moss, ponds, red campion, RSPB, Suffolk, woods

Elinor took her Art exam over two days at the beginning of May and on the Friday of that week she and I decided we’d go to the RSPB (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds) reserve at Minsmere for a relaxing walk. Richard was away in Manchester visiting his mother and brother and helping his brother clear his Mum’s house before putting it on the market.

We go to Minsmere very often and know all the walks. Elinor decided she wanted to walk through the woods instead of going to the shore. I was hoping to hear a Cuckoo and a Nightingale. We had a drink and a cake in the café before we set off.

IMG_2203Something on Birch tree Minsmere (640x427)

The first thing we saw was this and I have no idea what it is. Is it a canker, a fungus or is it a nest of some sort? It is on a Birch tree.

We saw this very pretty Crabapple blossom.

This is Common Vetch (Vicia sativa)

Red Campion (Silene dioica). The wind was blowing quite hard and I found it difficult to get anything in focus.

And this is one of the many ponds at Minsmere.

Another pond.

The weather, which had been quite pleasant in the morning, quickly deteriorated once we began our walk. It got quite cold and then a drizzly rain started as you can see by the raindrops on the pond above. Any hopes of hearing a Cuckoo or a Nightingale evaporated away.

There are Adders (Vipera berus) living on the reserve and we had been hoping to see them. We were told by another visitor that they were sleeping out in the open but unfortunately, by the time we arrived at the area where they are to be found, the rain had started and very sensibly they had gone under cover. The area is fenced off for their and our protection. They are Britain’s only venomous snake.

Reeds and water. We could hear Bitterns (Botaurus stellaris) booming in the reeds but we didn’t see any water fowl at all.

There was plenty of Oak Moss (Evernia prunastri) to be seen.

It is very attractive with its flat, curled branches. It isn’t moss at all but is in fact a lichenised fungus.

Air quality in the East of England isn’t as good as in the West of the country because the prevailing wind blows across the country, including London, before it gets to us. We are pleased when we find any kind of lichen as they are often indicators of clean air.

This dandelion plant had a couple of slug visitors.

We saw very many white bluebells in the wood

An Oak tree (Quercus robur) with new leaves and flowers.

This is the building that was constructed last year for the BBC Spring Watch team. This is as near as us members of the hoi polloi can get to it. The BBC are currently filming at Minsmere though they weren’t when Elinor and I visited.

The next six photographs are of a male Blackcap (Sylvia atricapilla) that I found singing next to the path. The photos are not cropped. This warbler didn’t appear to be at all nervous and at each pause in his song he seemed to look at me to judge my reaction! He filled his throat with air and used it like the bag on a bag-pipe to sing.

I was very pleased to get these pictures.

Thank-you for visiting!

A Visit to Captain’s Wood – 4th May 2015

29 Fri May 2015

Posted by Clare Pooley in plants, Rural Diary, trees, walking

≈ 24 Comments

Tags

Alexanders, bluebells, Captain's Wood, Climbing Corydalis, coppice, foxglove, Suffolk, Suffolk Wildlife Trust, veteran Oaks, wild cherry, wood sorrel, woods

Captain’s Wood is owned by Suffolk Wildlife Trust and is found next to the village of Sudbourne which lies south of where we live, about 40 minutes drive away. The morning had been beautiful and bright but by early afternoon the skies were beginning to cloud over and by the time we got to the wood the sun wasn’t shining much at all.

This was the first time we had visited the wood. We had heard that the bluebells there were wonderful and hoped that we would see some. We parked the car in a small car-park a few hundred metres from the entrance to the wood and walked down the lane towards it.

Both sides of the lane were covered in Alexanders (Smyrnium olusatrum) which had been in full sun all the morning and as a consequence were giving off a perfume redolent of rotting spinach!

Alexanders is a very attractive umbellifer and until recently has only been found within a few miles of the coast. I am not sure why, but in the last couple of years it has spread very quickly further inland and I have seen it in Norwich this spring for the first time.

I remember including it in one of my posts last year but can’t remember which so I’ll repeat what I said then. The name Alexanders refers to its origins as a herb of Macedonia (Alexander the Great’s country of birth). Its black seeds were sold in the 17th century under the name of Macedonian Parsley and Nicholas Culpeper the herbalist noted that among other things, Alexanders could cure not only flatulence but snake bite! The whole of the plant is edible and the generic name Smyrnium refers to its myrrh-like taste.

We walked along a short entrance path between gardens towards the wood.

Bee hives in someone’s garden

The first part of the wood we walked through didn’t really look like a wood.

This is newly acquired land consisting of 17 acres of small fields, scrub and a little area of woodland in-between the village and Captain’s Wood proper. This land has not been farmed for many years and was largely left fallow. Part of the land stays wet for most of the year and apparently has Marsh Orchids and other wetland plants growing there.

On entering the wood I saw this beautiful moss.

Most of the wood looks like this.

Captain’s Wood consists of mainly open woodland with Oak and Birch. There is a large stand of Hazel, clumps of mature Scots Pine and lines of planted Sweet Chestnut. Herds of deer roam at large through the wood and seven different types of bat live here.

There were a few Violets on the woodland floor. I didn’t check to see which violet this was but I think it may be Sweet Violet (Viola odorata)

New bracken.

Climbing Corydalis (Ceratocapnos claviculata)

Bartholomew of Glanville was an English friar living in the 13th century. He wrote an encyclopaedia of natural history and in it he said that, despite its ‘horrible savour’, the roots of this plant could be made into a potion for dispelling melancholy. Later on Climbing Corydalis became known as a cure for intestinal diseases. This plant, along with fumitories, has flowers that resemble clovers and vetches though with fewer petals. The flower’s peculiar shape has been likened to the head of a crested lark; hence the name ‘corydalis’.

Wild Cherry (Prunus avium)

The Foxgloves (Digitalis purpurea) were growing well.

Woodland floor under the pine trees.

A ‘Witch’s Broom’ in a Birch tree.

These ‘Witch’s Brooms’ are caused by a type of parasitic fungus which induces galls in its host.

Bracket fungus

One of the veteran Oak trees in the wood.

A close-up of the lichen-covered trunk of the Oak tree. A lot of the bark has disappeared and it no longer looks like a tree trunk anymore.

These veteran trees support many different species of fungi and invertebrates that are dependent on the slowly rotting heartwood of the tree. Most notable is the Oak Polypore fungus which is known from only six other sites in Britain. The Oak Polypore fruits for only a very short time in the summer.

New Oak leaves and flowers

One of the several ponds in the wood

Wood Sorrel (Oxalis acetosella). A flower which indicates ancient, undisturbed woodland and hedges. The petals are white or pink with lilac veins.

Wood Sorrel

A Beech tree (Fagus sylvatica) coming into leaf

IMG_4597Green river of Dog's Mercury (640x480)

This bright green, running like a river through the woods is Dog’s Mercury(Mercurialis perennis)

A coppice stool. The wood from the coppice is harvested every few years. New shoots are protected from deer and then left to grow until they are ready to be cut again.

At last we reached the part of the wood where the bluebells were, but found we were just a little too early to see them at their best.

Bluebells (Hyacinthoides non-scripta)

There were a number of white bluebells.

Bluebell potential was good….

….but if we had visited a week later it would have looked heavenly. Unfortunately, a week later we were doing other things.

We got back to the car and discovered we had a puncture. Richard tried to change the tyre himself but we were unable to get the tyre off. We had to call a rescue company and after just under an hour’s wait the mechanic arrived. He managed to remove the tyre by sitting on the ground and kicking it with his left then right boot alternately.

Captain’s Wood is somewhere we would visit again. It has plenty of plants and a variety of trees. The walk through the wood would be pleasurable at any time of the year.

Thank-you for visiting!

May’s End – Part 2

26 Tue May 2015

Posted by Clare Pooley in plants, Rural Diary, trees, wild animals

≈ 37 Comments

Tags

Brown Hare, Bugle, Common Comfrey, cow parsley, Creeping Buttercup, Dandelion clock, field maple, garlic mustard, Greater Stitchwort, ground-ivy, Hawthorn, Hedgerow Crane's-bill, Herb-Robert, Meadow Buttercup, orange-tip butterfly, red campion, rowan, Suffolk, trees, Tufted Forget-me-not, wild flowers, Wood Avens

This post will be featuring the wild life photographs I have taken away from home, either on short walks to the postbox for example, or when I have stopped the car having seen something special.

The Cow Parsley has been spectacular this year and especially so on the lane I drive down on my way to Norwich each day via Bungay. I was glad I took the following photos a couple of weeks ago as the road is now closed for road works and I hate to think what has happened to all these lovely flowers.

IMG_4679Cow Parsley and Red Campion (640x480)

Cow Parsley (Anthriscus sylvestris) and Red Campion (Silene dioica)

The Red Campion has never been better in all the time we have lived here too.

Cow Parsley and Red Campion

Red Campion

Male and female flowers are borne on separate plants.

Greater Stitchwort (Stellaria holostea)

This plant is a member of the Pink family and is a shade lover. It shines luminously in the twilight. Its stems are very weak and need the support of other plants to gain any height. The stems snap easily too, and according to the ancient ‘doctrine of signatures’ this means that the plant was thought to be able to help heal broken bones. The Greek words for whole ‘holos’ and bone ‘osteon’ are incorporated in the botanical name. The common name of Stitchwort refers not to mending but to another kind of stitch – the horrible pain in the side and similar ailments. A preparation of stitchwort and acorns taken in wine was a standard remedy. Stitchwort was regarded, at one time, along with White Campion and Field Poppy, as a ‘thunder flower’ – the picking of which provoked thunder and lightening.

Herb-Robert (Geranium robertianum)

Herb-Robert has orange pollen.

IMG_4685Herb-robert and Ground-ivy (640x480)

Herb-Robert with Ground-ivy (Glechoma hederacea)

Bugle (Ajuga reptans) seems to be growing everywhere this year too. I don’t remember seeing any at all last year.

Bugle was thought of as a cure-all by medieval herbalists. It healed all kinds of wounds, thrusts and stabs, as well as ulcers and broken bones. It was also highly recommended for delirium tremens brought on by too much alcohol. It has been called one of the mildest and best narcotics in the world. The Latin name Ajuga and the common name Bugle appear to be corruptions of one or more of the plants earlier names of ‘abuga’, ‘abija’ and ‘bugula’.

Jack-by-the-Hedge or Garlic Mustard (Alliaria petiolata)

This is the only British member of the cabbage family to smell very strongly of garlic. The smell of the small white flowers isn’t particularly pleasant but it attracts midges and hoverflies. The plant is self-pollinating. In June the pale green caterpillars of the Orange-tip butterfly can be seen feeding on the long green seed pods from which they are almost indistinguishable.

IMG_4695Orange Tip on Cow Parsley (640x480)

This is a photo of an Orange-tip butterfly feeding on the nectar from Cow Parsley. The camouflage is very good!

Creeping Buttercup (Ranunculus repens)

This plant spreads very quickly with long-rooted runners.

This is one of the fields next to the lane I drive down every day. It has a lot of buttercups in it (probably Meadow Buttercup (Ranunculus acris) )

Another view from the lane.

This shows the mass of Cow Parsley on the verge of the lane with two grand-looking Horse-chestnut trees (Aesculus hippocastanum) on the corner.

Common Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale agg. ) fruit or ‘clock’.

Wood Avens or Herb Bennet (Geum urbanum)

I think this may be Tufted Forget-me-not (Myosotis laxa)

This is the lane as it goes up a gentle rise towards St Margaret’s church.

Common Comfrey (Symphytum officinale)

Common Hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna)

Hedgerow Crane’s-bill (Geranium pyrenaicum)

Hedgerow Crane’s-bill with Cow Parsley and Ground-ivy

Field Maple (Acer campastre) flowers.

Rowan or Mountain Ash (Sorbus aucuparia). This is a photo I forgot to include in Part 1 as this is a tree in our garden.

Lastly, I include a couple of photos (not good) of a young Hare, or Leveret (as young Hares are called) that I saw in our garden yesterday. It was very curious, investigating everything. It kept on the move all the time, which made photographing it very difficult, suddenly racing off in one direction only to come racing back again next minute. It appeared to run for the joy of running!

Thank-you for visiting!

May’s End – Part 1

26 Tue May 2015

Posted by Clare Pooley in plants, Rural Diary, trees, wild animals

≈ 40 Comments

Tags

Ash, Bush Vetch, Common Vetch, cow parsley, cut-leaved crane's-bill, English Elm, garden, Germander Speedwell, horse chestnut, ivy, Muntjac fawn, Red Clover, Ribwort Plantain, Scots Pine, Small-leaved Lime, Suffolk, Thyme-leaved Speedwell, trees, white dead-nettle, wild flowers

Where has this year gone! It is nearly June already and I have been so busy and concerned for my family that I have been largely unaware of the passing of time. If it wasn’t for the photographs I have been able to take periodically I would think I had done nothing and gone nowhere.

This post will record the wild plants and trees I have in the garden. I haven’t been able to photograph any birds successfully for a few weeks and, because of the cool temperatures, there has been a distinct lack of insects other than a few hardy bees.

Common Vetch (Vicia sativa)

Bush Vetch (Vicia sepium)

Cow Parsley (Anthriscus sylvestris)

English Elm (Ulmus procera)

We have a number of English Elm saplings in our garden. The Elm has a suckering habit so we have groups of them in the scrub area near our big pond. When we first moved here in 2006 there were a few 20′ trees but those have since succumbed to Dutch Elm Disease. I can just remember the countryside when we had beautiful, stately Elm trees everywhere with their wide, domed crowns. Many of the trees had gaps where branches had been lost so they looked as though the trunks had leafy clouds on them. Not a good description I know but maybe those of you who remember Elms will know what I mean. My mother was always warned not to shelter under an Elm tree as they tended to lose branches easily.

Scots Pine (Pinus sylvestris)

The Scots Pine is another tree that loses branches easily. This is a little sapling we planted some years ago and hoped that it would be quite tall by now. Unfortunately it is still only about 3 foot tall and for some time we couldn’t understand why it wasn’t growing. We now believe that deer have been eating the new tips of the branches and have been pruning it. We are trying to protect it with a tall ring of mesh.

Ivy (Hedera helix)

I love the look of ivy. The different shades of green of the new and older leaves, the pale veins and the exciting leaf-shape. The upper leaves are oval and many people don’t believe they belong to the same plant. It is such a useful plant to have in the garden. It provides food and shelter to so many creatures and is useful greenery when I reluctantly have to provide flowers for church.

Ribwort plantain (Plantago lanceolata)

The seedheads are food for Goldfinches and other seed eaters.

IMG_2236Ribwort Plantain & a sawfly (640x433)

This flowerhead has a visiting insect – a type of sawfly I think.

White Dead-nettle (Lamium album)

Wild flowers. In this small patch there is Common Vetch, Creeping Buttercup, Heart’s-ease, Red Clover, Ground Ivy, Greater Plantain leaves and grasses.

The Horse-chestnut (Aesculus hippocastanum) is flowering well. The flowers are scented.

IMG_2248Thyme-leaved Speedwell (640x427)

Thyme-leaved Speedwell (Veronica serpyllifolia) The flowers are tiny!

Germander Speedwell (Veronica chamaedrys)

IMG_2249Cut-leaved Crane's-bill (640x427)

Cut-leaved Crane’s-bill (Geranium dissectum)

This is a little plant that is often over-looked but the leaves alone are quite beautiful.

Ash (Fraxinus excelsior). The Ash tree is one of the last trees to come into leaf.

Red Clover (Trifolium pratense)

Small-leaved Lime (Tilia cordata)

We have four small Small-leaved Lime trees which were a birthday present to me a couple of years ago. I think the red buds are lovely.

The final photo is a Muntjac fawn we saw a few evenings ago. It was alone and only stayed for a few minutes.

As you can see it was only as tall as my daffodils that needed dead-heading.

Thank-you for visiting!

The Merry (?) Month of May

16 Sat May 2015

Posted by Clare Pooley in cooking, family, Gardening, Insects, plants, Rural Diary, trees

≈ 86 Comments

Tags

family life, flowers, fruit trees, health, spring, Suffolk

Japanese Cherry ‘Fragrant Cloud’

We have been fairly busy during the past few weeks with not much time for trips out. Not that the weather has been conducive to those type of activities; we get one quite nice day with sunshine and a bit of warmth and then we revert to cold, windy days with grey skies and some rain too. We are still getting cold nights and looking at the photographs I took this time last year, the flowers and blossom I am seeing now were ones I saw then during the second half of April. The photos I am including in this post have been mainly taken on the few nice days we’ve had this month.

Crabapple ‘Evereste’

I took my mother to the hospital for her six-week check-up and we were sorry to be told that both her eyes had suffered a bleed or some damage and she would have to return to have injections in both eyes at the same time. We duly returned a few days later and she had the injections. Her eyesight has deteriorated again and for someone who has always enjoyed reading she is finding it so hard not to be able to read with ease any more. She can’t read sub-titles on the TV quickly enough either so has had to give up watching her favourite foreign-language programmes. She has also been told her kidneys are not functioning too well and her GP is having to re-think what medication she should be taking now. She is a brave and sensible woman and is trying to make the best of the situation.

Crabapple ‘Harry Baker’

My mother-in-law has now moved into her care-home. The actual move caused her some distress and she is still very unhappy. She had lived in her home for over forty years and she had been very happy there. She knows that she wouldn’t be able to care for herself if she went back home, even with a full care package, as she is almost totally immobile now and has so many other serious medical problems. But that thought doesn’t take much of the sadness and frustration away; it probably adds to it. Richard and his brother spent two full days last week going through her whole house finding the few things she would be able to take with her to the home and then trying to decide what to do with the rest of her belongings. They had four trips to the tip to get rid of things no longer needed and have stored the rest of her possessions in my brother-in-law’s cellar. My poor mother-in-law is sad that she has to sell her house to pay for her care and that she won’t be able to leave anything to her sons when she dies.

Pear ‘Concord’

My eldest daughter Alice is working hard on the few corrections that have to be made to her thesis before it is printed and bound. She is also rehearsing for her next production with her drama group. Because of her work schedule she won’t be able to visit us until the beginning of June. We haven’t seen her since 31st December – the longest time we have ever gone without seeing each other.

Bergenia flowers. I took this photo on the 5th of May thinking that they may not be around that much longer. In past years I have had all my bergenia flowers eaten by deer or rabbits almost as soon as they came out. Not this year (so far). They are still flowering and have got so tall and look wonderful.

Elinor has taken her Art exam and has finished and handed in all her course-work. She was pleased with the way her exam went. She managed to do all she had wanted to do and didn’t panic at all. Of course, she is now starting to worry that she hasn’t done enough and might not pass her exam! She has an interview on Wednesday with tutors of the next two-year course she has applied to go on. She wants to do Graphic Art and we and her current tutors think that she will do very well.

Lathyrus ‘Spring Beauty’

We are currently applying for assistance for Elinor for next year. This will provide her with one-to-one mentors who will be able to help her if she experiences anxiety at college and it may also be possible to provide her with different equipment and/or furniture which she may need because of her mild scoliosis. She suffers from frequent back pain especially when she has to stand for any length of time.

Apple ‘Discovery’

She has her other exams during the first two weeks in June and is trying to revise for these at the moment. English and Psychology are no problem to her and she is predicted to do well in both these exams but it is Maths as always which is causing her, and us all, such headaches.

Heavy rain on 8th May

IMG_4640Dove's-foot Crane's-bill (480x640)

Dove’s-foot Crane’s-bill (Geranium molle)

Richard is fine and is getting used to the fact that he will need to be on medication for the rest of his life. Join the club, I say! He will be seeing the specialist in a few months time to have his situation reviewed with regard to the lesion on his pituitary gland. Will he or won’t he have to have an operation to have it removed? He is counting down the days until his retirement at the end of August but in the meantime is having to work very hard at work and has been allocated a number of jobs to do at locations all over the country, all to be done in the next couple of months. The firm is getting its money’s worth out of him before he goes. He is naturally saddened about his mother’s situation but knows she is being cared for properly now.

Lilac

Not a good photo of Bush Vetch (Vicia sepium)

I continue to have a problem with my dry throat. I have seen a different doctor at our local surgery a couple of times and he has prescribed artificial saliva spray and also pastilles that should stimulate saliva production. This all sounds unpleasant but the treatment has improved matters a little. I would have liked to find out why I suddenly got a dry throat in January, which can be very uncomfortable at times, and would also like to know if there is anything I am doing or eating which has brought it on. It would be good to know that I could get rid of it by a change in life-style. I cannot get anyone interested in this and am just supplied with medication to alleviate the symptoms. The GP says I am to tell my Rheumatology specialist about my dry throat when I next go to see her – there is a possible connection between one of the tablets I take, rheumatoid arthritis and dry throats. I asked if the specialist might be able to do anything for me. Oh no, I doubt it, said the GP, she will just find it interesting! The one unfortunate side-effect is I am unable to sing properly any more. I get great pleasure from singing and hoped to be able to re-join a choir when circumstances allowed but if things stay as they are I would be a liability. It saddens me that I have had to give up so many hobbies because of my health and I had hoped that I would be able to sing for a while longer – I hope nevertheless that the medication will eventually enable me to sing again. I have also had a very upset stomach for the past ten days. I have had to continue with driving my daughter and mother to the places they need to be and also had a few appointments of my own to keep, but when I have eventually got back home I have no energy for much housework or any gardening let alone the enthusiasm for reading and blogging. I have felt quite a lot better today and have managed to catch up with commenting on the blogs I follow but if I have said anything over the last couple of weeks that has been a little odd please blame it on the stomach bug (it wasn’t me!).

Bluebell (Hyacinthoides non-scripta)

IMG_4645Orange-tip on bluebell (640x480)

Male Orange-tip butterfly (Anthocharis cardamines) on bluebell. It’s a pity the butterfly chose to drink nectar from a bluebell with a bird poo on it!

On May Day Bank Holiday Monday, Rumburgh village had its annual fete and as usual I provided a couple of cakes for the church’s cake stall. Richard pulled a large amount of our rhubarb as well which was also sold on the stall. I spent most of the day before baking the two cakes I took to the fete. We went out in the afternoon to Captain’s Wood to see if the bluebells were flowering. I will put that visit in a separate post.

Honey Cake tray bake. It’s always good to provide tray bakes or individual small cakes for cake stalls. They sell for more money than a large cake does.

The tea tent at the Rumburgh fete

Last week, while Richard was away in Manchester helping his brother sort out their Mum’s house, Elinor and I went to Minsmere RSPB reserve to walk through the woods. This will also be the subject of another post.

While I was baking cakes for the fete I also made an Eve’s Pudding for us to eat at home. I didn’t manage to photograph this before some of it had been eaten. The other cake I made for the fete but didn’t photograph, was a Mincemeat Cake. A good way of using up the extra mincemeat bought at Christmas.

This is the sum total of our activities so far this month. Quite gloomy in places I’m afraid.

Thank-you for visiting!

A Walk to St Peter’s Church 12th April 2015

09 Sat May 2015

Posted by Clare Pooley in churches, plants, Rural Diary, Uncategorized, walking

≈ 41 Comments

Tags

architecture, churches, St Peter South Elmham, Suffolk, walking

IMG_4351Primrose bank outside St Peters (480x640)

Primrose bank outside St Peter’s church

I am indebted to our Rector the Rev. Richard Thornburgh for the use of his Notes on the church of St Peter South Elmham. A leaflet we bought when we visited the church.

Richard and I went to church at St Peter South Elmham on the 12th April. It was a lovely spring day and the primroses on the bank outside the church were glorious! We decided that, as it was such a nice day, we would walk back to the church in the afternoon and try to get there across the fields instead of along the lanes. We had travelled there by car in the morning.

We set off on the same route across the fields that we usually use and were pleased to see that the ground was dry and virtually mud free.

Dried grass in the field.

Our goal; St Peters church across the fields. You can just see it behind the trees on the horizon.

We have been having to put up with almost continuous road repairs to our lanes for the past two or three months. The repairs are desperately needed but the long diversions to get past them have been very inconvenient. This was a strange place for this sign to be. It was half way along a very narrow lane with no other lanes turning off it. It would have confused a stranger!

Richard walking across the field at the valley bottom. The paths are so clearly marked in the fields. So many people have used these paths over the centuries that the ground is indented and the grass grows differently.

The Beck, our local stream, at the corner of the field; with blackthorn blossom.

Another view of St Peters church

The water in the Beck was beautifully clear.

Such a beautiful glossy horse in a field we walked past.

This bridge over the Beck at the bottom of the hill in St Peter’s village has been rebuilt many times. You can just about see the couple of patches of red brick.

St Michael’s church in the village of St Michael can be seen from the bottom of the hill in St Peter’s village. Almost all our village churches in ‘The Saints’ are within very short distances of each other.

The view up the hill to St Peters church

Looking back down the hill from the church to where the bridge is.

St Peter’s churchyard

This is believed to be the base and part of the Preaching Cross which once stood at the nearby road junction.

The 14th century porch which has very worn carved faces (headstops) on the outer arch. Richard is inside reading notices on the notice-board. The door into the church from inside the porch, that Richard is standing in front of, is much older than the porch. It is early Norman – late 11th or 12th century.

The stoup recess inside the porch. This would have contained a bowl of Holy Water.

IMG_4374Window in the tower (2) (597x640)

The window in the tower.

The beautifully carved Rood screen and the chancel.

I was sorry not to be able to get a better photo of the Rood screen as it is quite lovely. I would have had to light the church properly so that the sunlight from the windows wasn’t causing the Rood Screen to be in silhouette. The screen isn’t all that old. It was presented to the church by the Adair family from Flixton Hall in 1923.

You can see the socket holes in the arch above the screen into which the original screen and tympanum were fitted. The originals were probably destroyed during the time of the Commonwealth.

The nave has a beautiful timber roof.

18th century pulpit.

The altar, the modern oak reredos behind the altar and the east window.

Carving in stone and wood

A list of the names of all the Rectors of St Peter’s church from the 14th century to the 19th century and their patrons.

The harmonium

Ancient door

This is the 15th century font with a typically East Anglican lion design. There are four lions round the shaft and angel faces with crossed hands above them. Above the angels are Tudor rose designs and blank shields. The font cover is 17th century work. Please ignore the decorative red bucket under the pew! I didn’t notice it when I took the photo.

Part of tomb panel

There used to be a Lady Chapel, built in the late 14th or 15th century, on the north side of the church. In the chapel, John Tasburgh Esq. and his wife Margery, owners of the land on which the church was built, were buried. The tomb panel pictured above (one of two) is all that is left of their tombs, and therefore all that’s left of the Lady Chapel which was desecrated during the Commonwealth years. By 1830 the chapel was in a terribly dilapidated state, the tombs had been dismantled and the panels used as the base for the new north wall. The panels extend for about another foot below ground level. The last of the chapel was demolished in the 1840’s.

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South side of the church

The tower

The east window

By the time we left the church it had become very windy and we really struggled in our walk home.

I thought at first I had found some wild strawberries, but on closer inspection I realised that this is a Barren Strawberry plant.

IMG_4397Barren strawberry flower (640x480)

Barren Strawberry (Potentilla sterilis)

The petals of the Barren Strawberry are widely spaced and the fruits are dry and papery. The terminal tooth of the end leaflet ( the plant is trifoliate like a strawberry plant) is shorter than the adjacent ones.

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The sky was beautiful.

Thanks for visiting!

Dunwich Heath – August 31st 2014

07 Thu May 2015

Posted by Clare Pooley in plants, Rural Diary, Uncategorized, walking

≈ 47 Comments

Tags

bell-heather, coastguard cottages, coastline, Dunwich Heath, dwarf gorse, erosion, gorse, heather, heathland, ling, marram, National Trust, sandlings, Sea Kale, shingle beach, Suffolk

Richard, Elinor and I took a trip to Dunwich Heath at the end of August last year. We wanted to go somewhere different to our usual places but didn’t want to make a long journey.

The old coastguard cottages. The National Trust tearoom is situated in the end cottage. The other cottages are rented out as holiday homes.

The County of Suffolk has six topographical regions each with its own distinct landscape features. I live in High Suffolk with its boulder-clay soil but just a couple of miles to the East of us the soil changes and becomes sand and gravel. This gravelly area is called The Sandlings and Dunwich Heath (part of the Sandlings) is right on the coast. To quote the National Trust description of the area –

‘Dunwich Heath is where the Sandlings meets the sea. It is 87 hectares (215 acres) of heather, gorse, grassland, woodland and crumbling sandy cliffs, as well as a mile of shifting sand and shingle beach. The Sandlings landscape was created by early farmers thousands of years ago. The sandy, free-draining soils became dominated by heather as farmers cleared the trees and introduced sheep to graze the land.

Within the Sandlings, only at Dunwich does the heathland extend to the cliff top – a rare example of coastal lowland heath.’

The shingle beach and cliffs

Late summer and early autumn is the best time to visit heathland as that is the time the heather is in flower.

We parked the car and walked to the beach first, as the seaside is Elinor’s favourite place to be.

Heather, gorse and bracken by the side of the path. This heather is going to seed; I love the orange colour of the seed capsules.

We found Sea Kale (Crambe maritima) as usual, with Marram grass (Ammophila arenaria) and Gorse behind it

Heather on the shoreline

You can see here what the cliffs are made of – sand and gravel in layers. It is no wonder they are crumbling away.

The sands are known as ‘crags’. The southern sandling crags are the oldest – a shelly ‘Coralline Crag’ which was deposited in warm tropical conditions about 3.5 million years ago forms an island and is surrounded by a sea of ‘Red Crag’ which is also full of fossilised shells. The northern crag known as ‘Norwich Crag’ is younger and is less than 2 million years old. Dunwich Heath is part of the ‘Norwich Crag’.

I have found three Belemnite fossils in my garden. Perhaps some gravel containing these fossils was brought to the area when the house was built or perhaps the land where we live is the border between the clay soil and the sandy soil.

The little holes are probably Sand Martin (Riparia riparia) nestholes. The pipe sticking out at the top left of the picture is probably a land drain.

Dunwich has disappeared into the sea at a rate of about 400 metres in 400 years. Houses and other buildings are still lost regularly. I don’t know what the structure at the top left of the picture is, or was!

We could see the town of Southwold to the north.

There is a large expanse of grassland here.

Richard and I left Elinor on the beach and went for a walk.

There were plenty of flowers and grasses to see. Further away across the water meadows and marshes are the two nuclear energy plants at Sizewell.

Parasol fungus (Macrolepiota procera) about 2′ tall!

Honeysuckle – not native

Common Ragwort – Senecio jacobaea

White Campion – Silene latifolia

This is the sight we had come to see. The beautiful heath in flower.

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Heather (Calluna vulgaris) also known as Ling.

Bell Heather(Erica cinerea) – (the larger flowers)

Dwarf Gorse (Ulex minor) There are plenty of Gorse (Ulex europaeus) bushes on the heath as well.

I heard and then saw a Dartford Warbler (Sylvia undata) on the top of a Gorse bush, but he was too far away to photograph.

A plaque on the cliff-top

The plaque

Clouds

The beach

This next photograph really makes me laugh!

Look at Elinor’s expression! Goodness knows what I must have been wittering on about.

‘Oh wad some power the giftie gie us / To see oursel’s as others see us! / It wad frae monie a blunder free us, / And foolish notion.’ Robert Burns

A Border Force ship patrolling the coast. The modern coastguards.

A sea-watch shelter. Looking at the water can be interesting and calming in itself but often ships, boats and other craft can be seen as well as sea-birds and mammals such as dolphins and seals.

We ended our visit with a cake each and a drink of choice at the tea-room.