25th March - McIlroy Park
Clayfield Copse - David Fiddes
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McIlroy Park became Clayfield Copse for my second attempt as task leader. The first one, felling pine trees on heathland near Crowthorne, ended in me having to retire injured after being flicked in the eye by a pine needle. As being poked in the eye is about the worst thing a 6 foot pine tree could do to you I approached the task of felling 30 foot sycamores with a certain amount of trepadation. Fortunately, this task was done without any casualties. |
Richard Coles felled a couple of dozen sycamore and the rest of the group felled the smaller stuff and cleared up behind Richard. The logs were piled or used as path edging and the branches used to extend the extensive network of dead hedges that this site now has. The weather remained dry, although the mud under foot wasn't!
18th March - Clayfield Copse - Neil Frankum
A dull & overcast day saw the largest turnout of the year so far, with 16 of us out on task. The work involved coppicing the hazel to widen a section of the main ride though Clayfield Copse. The afternoon was spent building a dead hedge along the side of the area we cleared. Most of this done to a background of singing coming from the six girls as they wove branches into the dead hedge!
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Working on the dead hedge. Why does everyone keep on hiding as soon as I get my camera out? |
| Dead hedge construction underway using the coppiced hazel branches created as we opened up a clearing along the main ride. | 
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4th March - Dinton Pastures
Blundells Copse - Neil Frankum
| Even with a quite a few of the regulars disappearing to Cambridge for the weekend, we still managed a good turnout, and with the women outnumbering the men until Rodney turned up at lunchtime to even out the numbers. This was our first task affected by the foot and mouth outbreak. It should have been at Dinton Pastures, but the country park was closed as part of Wokingham District Council's prevention measures. Some quick phoning round by Mark provided the alternative venue at an urban site unaffected by the restrictions. Our task was clearing a large patch of brambles in a clearing at the Calder Close end of the wood. We used the brambles, timber from a felled tree, and existing logs to create a dead hedge around the clearing to prevent trampling of the ground by passers by. Fortunately the few light flurries of snow that had greeted our arrival at the site didn't last long and most of the day was nice and sunny. |  |
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One of the non native trees that are being removed from the wood to allow for replanting with native Birish species at a later date. |
| Sharpening stakes to make it easier to knock them into the ground. They are used to hold together the dead hedge created around the cleared area. The dead hedge is intended to protect the open area from being trampled by passing walkers. |  |
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We were also clearing a large area of invading bramble that was out competing everything else growing in the area. |
25th February - West Green Common - Richard Coles
For a change it was a warm and sunny when we went to continue our coppicing at West Green Common. Alastair lit the fire, and had it going immediately, so has a job for life now. Pat and his gang were there too, working on their own patch. They added some interest by felling a large birch tree, which was leaning the wrong way, using a rope attached to a 4 wheel drive vehicle. The tree missed the 4WD (just), and I think we shall stick to using a winch.
16th - 18th February - Roydon Woods Resi - Mark Clay
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We left Reading in the madness of Friday rush hour stopping on the way to sample the true culinary delights of Rownhams Services. The eight of us got to Sway and then we eventually got the key somehow, and hit the pub where everyone got nicely warmed up for Saturday night. We ambled to the site early on Saturday morning. The site was a hedge alongside the road above the Lymington River. |
We were laying about 160 yards of hedge. It was a gloriously sunny day. Two people invited trouble by vanishing for over an hour on the Saturday afternoon, returning with a rubber duck, but what else happened…..? Only they know! They got rather wound up on the Saturday night, but no-one can remember much about it as the alcohol flowed rather freely! Everyone was rather hung over on Sunday, but we finished the job, and a rather subdued van went back to Reading.
16th - 18th February - Roydon Woods Resi - Philip Allen
Driving away with a van load of tools were eight crazy fools looking for fun. Alicia who was really quite insane to join us from Spain. Steve was shocked at the sight of the tools and looked at us as if we were mad. Richard provided us the fuel to drive us on and on. Andy who drinks quicker than he thinks provided the backing harmony to Roxy's music, as did Niamh and Philip who footed the bill. Mark took the lead with the map in a flap. We swayed our way home into the sunset after laying all day in hedge between the church and Red Lion. The hall was frosty when the heating pumped out cold air instead of hot. We layed 160m of hawthorn, hazel, blackthorn hedge, with the resulting lacerations and abrasions to all, which did not diminish the fun of trying to come up with an anthem to The Irish Rover (that no-one knew how it went) over a pint or two of Richard's 'Super Apple 2' wine.
4th February - Caesar's Camp - Richard Coles
Anybody who has had to do Latin translations of Caesar's campaigns keeps on coming across the sentence "Caesar withdrew his forces to a nearby hill". It seems the usual thing to do if you couldn't think of anything better was to move your army to an easily defensible hilltop. So here we were at Caesar's Camp, on a rainswept plateau south of Bracknell, surrounded by woodland. We cleared a big area of pine and birch seedlings despite the wind and the rain. From the size of the plateau, Caesar must have had a big army. Below the worksite were the remains of the earth ramparts, massive earth banks probably thrown up in a few days, two thousand years ago when the local peasantry tilled the soil instead of sitting in front of computer screens.
28th January - Bartley Heath - Neil Frankum
This task should have been at Hook Common but John didn't turn up to show us what to do so we changed it to Bartley Heath as we knew what we would be doing there.
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It turned out John had forgotten his landrover keys
and had had to go back and get them. As usual we were
clearing the invading birch and having a big bonfire. We
managed to continue the trend such that every task in
January has had an attendance in double figures. After
task we adjourned first to the Black Boy, and then moved
on to the George for some food.
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21st January - Dinton Pastures
We were able to practice our ice skating around the frozen carpark before commencing work.The work was coppicing trees near the fishermans car park.
14th January - West Green Common
| We came, we chopped, we almost walked out the pub
without paying (for the second time!!!!) Picture shows Alicia & Niamh translating the website into Spanish. |
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7th January - Clayfield Copse
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A joint task with the Friends Of Clayfield Copse,
widening the main ride through the wood, and building
dead hedges. Picture shows three camera shy BeCettes - Niamh, Roxy, & Carme |
