SPRING 2014 THE NEWSLETTER FOR BUXTON CIVIC ASSOCIATION ISSUE 26 Celebrating Our New Website What better way to celebrate the season of ‘springing into action’ than with the launch of our new interactive website? The quality of the graphics and photographs and the ease with which we can all access this brilliant new resource will inform and educate us all as we get out and about, exploring our lovely, local environment. This ‘screen shot’ of the home page will encourage all our members and visitors, near and far , to catch up on the latest news and to share in the work of the BCA online. Have no fears though the good old Newsletter is alive and well – a permanent ‘hard copy’ to keep handy and enjoy in your own time, to share with family and friends over coffee! SPRING 2014 THE NEWSLETTER FOR BUXTON CIVIC ASSOCIATION ISSUE 26 News from Our Woods If you go down to Corbar Wood today you’re sure of a big surprise! The Rings of Tree! Even our ‘Fallen Beech’ was a handsome Elegy for a Fallen Beech young fellow decades before John Carr designed the Crescent and was already 50 by Trevor Donald when Jane Austen chose to place her most During a stormy night last December the famous character in our beautiful home county oldest tree in our woods crashed down, leaving and wrote, ‘… I think could live my whole life a stump about six feet tall and a prostrate in Derbyshire,’ Pride and Prejudice (1813). trunk about 100 feet long with a diameter of When it celebrated its 100th year around about four feet. Our veteran beech had been 1863 the Midland Railway and the Stockport, growing, maturing, and then declining into old Disley and Whaley Bridge Railway opened age beside the main path through Corbar Wood within two weeks of each other with for about 250 years. Many thousand residents, fan windows to match. Thankfully one visitors and workers must have passed close by window is still gratefully preserved today. and, especially in the last few decades, stopped to admire its knotted textures and rich decay that was providing a habitat for a complex biodiversity. Most of its great trunk will be left where it fell to continue its necessary role in the ongoing cycle of regeneration: a healthy wood has as much ‘dead’ timber as living trees. In a recent ‘Country Diary’ in the Guardian, Photo by Ben Brooksbank 1963 Buxton born-and-bred naturalist Mark Cocker was musing on the very much older ancient At 150 years of age our tree stood proudly as we oaks in Savernake Forest in Wiltshire. Some plunged into World War One and Edwardians, like were probably growing before 1066. He was Vera Brittain used Sir Joseph Paxton’s planned trying to define why so many of us find them ‘Swiss Walks’ in Corbar Woods for relaxation so moving and fascinating. ‘Is it because they and recuperation after harrowing days, nursing contain all our post-Norman history in one the wounded in the Royal Devonshire Hospital. stump? Or is it our time-lapse reflections on all those billions of other organisms that have As ‘the beech’ reached 200 years Buxton was lived and flourished in their complex embrace struggling in the sixties. Ridiculous Plans to over the past millennium? Could it also be that replace the land in front of the Palace Hotel with a they turn death into a sort of living process?’ huge roundabout were thwarted by a new group We hope to install a thin slice of the trunk of civically aware Buxtonians. For more details at the Visitor Centre with an explanatory we all await Olive Middleton’s forthcoming caption about how trees grow and ask visiting book about the first 50 years of the BCA. children to try to count the rings. I hope our now fallen old friend would approve. A new wave of ‘Civics’ joined BCA as our beech reached 225 years. Concerns over a huge coal- SPRING 2014 THE NEWSLETTER FOR BUXTON CIVIC ASSOCIATION ISSUE 26 fired chimney drew in new dedicated members from the 1970s have introduced whitebeam, like Hilary Lawrence, who spent the next 25 years alder, yew, holly and rowan amongst others. scrutinising planning applications on our behalf. One of the wood’s main features is the seasonal Now as the old beech shows its rings of time stream which issues from valley floor springs. to us we need to play our part in the future of Gathering a strong flow, the water disappears this unique town. The best time to plant a tree beneath Harpur Hill Road and emerges alongside was 25 years ago the second best time is now! Duke’s Drive before plunging into the depths of Lovers’ Leap gorge to join the River Wye. Bluebells in Corbar Woods - The high lime content of this water betrays its source from the discarded lime-workings of ready to put on a show and Stanley Moor, but nevertheless hosts a myriad banish the winter blues! of invertebrates, amphibians and small fish. Access to the wood is either from Harpur Hill Road or Fern Lane or a path from Trent Avenue by Harpur Hill Primary School and via a portion of the wood owned by Derbyshire Country Council; an example of the complex boundaries which our woodlands sometimes share. Although there are no formal designated public rights of way through Sherbrook, the wood is very well visited with a popular short cut from Harpur Hill to Buxton Photo by Simon Fussell Community School and connections to open Spotlight on Sherbrook Wood land for dog walkers and ramblers. New housing estates including the Templemore development by Alan Walker which extends to the wood’s quarry edge boundary has significantly increased the woodland usage. In 2012 BCA embarked on a project to improve access with several hundred yards of upgraded pathways expertly constructed by Oakleaf Landscapes and aggregate donated by Tarmac Ltd. The bridge across the seasonal stream was rebuilt and replacement gateway access points installed. The Ring of Trees walk passes through here. Straddling the lower end of Fernydale, Sherbrook wood at the bottom of Harpur Hill Road is one of BCA’s smaller woods at just eight acres. This wood was one of the original plantations passed to our ownership from the Chatsworth Sherbrook in summer. estate in 1970 along with Grin Low and Corbar. Photo from The Ring of Trees Sherbrook shares a similar history with Grin Low. The boundary with both woods is just a Inevitably the high use by visitors leads to some few hundred yards apart separated by Fern conflicts. We have a larger littering problem here Lane. There is plenty of evidence of limestone than in other woods with occasional fly tipping. BCA quarrying and lime burning from the 18th volunteers assist with keeping on top of littering century and the remains of a lime-burner’s house here as elsewhere. Large scale tree felling due is now occupied by a large family of badgers. to the proximity of new housing was necessary in 2013. However robust agreements with the Planting probably took place at the same time developers have provided for future replanting as Grinlow and evidence of this is in the huge and rejuvenation of this area of the wood. beech trees found within the wood, dating from around 1820. The tree species are predominately Take a springtime stroll through Sherbrook beech, ash and sycamore with some fine scots as the wood anemones and celandines pines planted in the early 20th century. Plantings begin to carpet the woodland floor. SPRING 2014 THE NEWSLETTER FOR BUXTON CIVIC ASSOCIATION ISSUE 26 Members’ News Making Links with Friends of Buxton Museum. In November Mike Monaghan and Olive Middleton gave a talk to the Friends of Buxton Museum about BCA. They were asked about the woodlands and from this the seeds of an idea have grown into learning more about our trees. Another loyal BCA member, Angela Wills, is working on a walk in Grin Low identifying the main trees, and printing some easy hand-outs. Alan Walker on a raft exploring a cave in China. The January Club night continued the theme Catch Up on Club Nights of brave volunteers. This time Roger Bennett celebrated of 50 years of the Mountain Over the winter we have enjoyed two Rescue. His talk, The History of Mountain fascinating talks at the Café @ the Cavern Rescue in the Peak District explained that The first was by our very own Alan Walker. it was established in the 1960s after three In the November talk, ‘My life Underground’, disasters, including the infamous Four Inns he revealed that, although not a spy, Walk tragedy. Whilst police and ambulance he has never been afraid of getting into crews are always on standby the Mountain a tight spot anywhere in the world! Rescue team is trained to deal specifically with the unexpected events caused by the unpredictable nature of the great outdoors. Originally called Mountaineering Rescue – which explains the name as there are no mountains in the Peak District – members know their way on Kinder in the dark. They use specially designed equipment, especially stretchers that have evolved over the last fifty years of unique rescues. They are called out about 250 times a year to help … ‘with any medical emergency that can happen to you outside in the Peak Alan started caving at Buxton College at 14 District!’ The number of calls has increased and trained in the craft of caving skills at with the popularity of the great outdoors and Whitehall Outdoor centre in the 1970s.