Blog Archives: Britain’s Wildlife

Poking around the Suffolk-Norfolk borderlands: Beccles, Southwold, Bungay and Diss

Britain's Wildlife, Travel by Bus, Travel by Rail

Our early May short break by public transport (May is too good a month to miss, so we generally have more than one that month!) was an opportunity to visit hitherto little-known parts of East Anglia, and to use our bus-passes to the full…we are getting rather evangelical about them!

So we headed to Norwich by train, but it was then by bus all the way until our return a couple of days later from Diss. Two nights in Beccles gave us a great opportunity to explore, the usual mix of wildlife, wild spaces, architecture and historical townscapes, although sadly not quite in the way we anticipated. Our hotel, Swan House, on booking.com claimed to have its rooms in the disused church tower, a good part of our reason for selecting it, but we arrived to find the tower actually across the road. Yes, we could see it, but not quite the same, and a complaint is in progress!

But whatever the shortcomings, Beccles as a town didn’t fail to impress. As we approached by bus, the view of the hulk of St Michael’s Church looming over the town atop the only high ground in the vicinity was already impressive, indicative of the wool and trade wealth of the town in former times. Up close it was just as impressive, notwithstanding its lack of an integral high point…

And the aforementioned tower, detached as a campanile because of the structural risks of building such a structure on the edge of the former cliff-line above what used to be the port, and impressive by night as well as by day.

  

Inside, the awe subsides. Much of it was rather plain, and even the stone heads seem unimpressed. Could this be a result of the great fire of 1586 which destroyed the interior of the church as it was, along with a sizeable part of the town?

From the churchyard the views were lovely, over the Broads National Park, the River Waveney in the foreground, its reed-fringed margins crackling with the songs of Reed Warblers.

The feel of the town was somewhat akin to both Kings Lynn, wearing proudly its trading influences with the Low Countries, and Rye, with its commanding position in an otherwise flat landscape.

And as with both those towns, Beccles was full of historic buildings. The list of 149 of them seemed remarkable, although not out of keeping with the other towns we visited as we subsequently discovered, and includes churches, shops, houses and many others, some timbered, others with decorative brick- and flint-work.

 

The delightful little museum of local interest is in one such building, Leman House, built around 1570 and restored a couple of centuries later, adding brick and flint facades to the timber frame. For much of its history it served as a free school, the layout of which is partly retained inside.

The rear garden, overlooking the river, contains some wonderful wooden seats, richly clothed in lichens and with many Virgin Bagworms, silken bags clothed with bits of grit and algae from their surroundings which contain either larvae or wingless females: there are no males, so these odd moths spend all their life inside their bags.

Even the modern Tesco store celebrates the history of the town, well known in the past for its printing industry. Established by William Clowes in 1803, the printing works merged with Caxton Press in 1873, and became a major employer, specialising in printing directories and reference books. ‘Caxton’ is of course a significant name in British printing history, William Caxton having introduced the first printing press to England in 1476, going on to publish many significant works, including Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. But the Beccles Caxton Press seems to be unrelated to the original, a fortuitous (or opportunistic?) branding perhaps?

We searched hedges and greenspace for insects in the lovely sunshine of our first afternoon, finding a nymph Toad Bug and lots of Pinalitus cervinus, a variable mirid bug, mostly on Ivy leaves…

… along with basking flies such as the hoverfly Epistrophe eligans, a Helina sp. and and anthomyiid in a buttercup flower (demonstrating well how bees are not the only pollinators in town!), together with Red Mason Bees, Holly Blues and Painted Ladies, part of the recent influx to our shores.

All around the town there were gulls, Herring and Lesser Black-backed, waiting opportunistically on the rooftops, but largely dissuaded from breeding by the widespread deployment of anti-bird spikes. So the Nationwide deserve a big pat on the back for accommodating a nesting Woodpigeon with grace!

All in all, Beccles was a lovely surprise to us. That is apart from the disappointment of our room not being in the bell tower, and the Waveney House Hotel losing our food and drink trade when we turned up, and nobody came to serve us after ten minutes’ wait. The Hotel’s loss was Wetherspoon’s gain, and saved us a pretty packet…

Next day the weather changed, dawning grey, damp and cool with a biting easterly wind. Not perhaps the best of days to head by bus on a white-knuckle double-decker ride, careering along tiny roads to Southwold on the coast, especially with dire forecasts of rain. But remarkably we survived and the serious clouds skirted us, producing no more than a couple of drops all day.

A walk to Gun Hill gave us views of the cold seascape, the decorative beach huts and over the dunes south to Sizewell, as well as a very welcome hot coffee at the kiosk café.

 

The cliffline along the prom was covered in flowers, including Sand Sedge, Buck’s-horn Plantain and Wild Clary, in places supplemented with showy maritime garden escapes including cultivars of Thrift and Seaside Daisy.

The pier looks historic but, after the slings and arrows (wind, waves and wars) of the 20th century, was substantially rebuilt between 1999 and 2001. It still has the traditional arcades and ice creams one would expect, and yes, even with the cool wind, we indulged ourselves in the first ice cream of the summer!

The pier also provided coastal views, including back to the town, marine-life-themed furniture and a tribute to George Orwell, whose family home was in the town for 9 years of his all-too-short life.

The two most prominent features of the town’s skyline are the lighthouse and church. Set back from the coast, the lighthouse still functions, an essential marker for avoiding the shifting shoals offshore.

 

Presumably the church tower also serves as a prominent seamark by day. Dedicated to St Edmund, the church is clearly proud of the refuge for nature provided by its churchyard, branded an ‘Eco-church’.

Not overmown, there were a few insects around, including a Small Copper feeding on Mouse-eared Hawkweed flowers, and fresh green Beech leaves in sheltered nooks supported lots of life, here Gooden’s Nomad-bee, a Hawthorn Shieldbug and flittering flocks of Green Longhorn moths, trying hard not to get blown away.

The gravestones and churchyard walls too kept us happily occupied looking at Grimmia pulvinata, mating Fever-flies, hunting Zebra Jumping-spiders…

… and a kaleidoscope of lichens, including sulphur Psilolechia lucida, black Melanalixia fulignosa and pale grey Phlyctis argena.

If Beccles’ church disappointed internally, the opposite was true of Southwold’s: ornate woodwork everywhere, including the beautiful main door, some charming decorative paintwork…

   

..plus stained glass depicting among many other things the martyrdom of St Edmund, killed by invading Vikings in 869. And then there is the array of saints, their faces erased by iconoclastic fervour, Medieval cancel culture.

Once again, all around the town there was historical and architectural interest, indeed with only five fewer listed buildings than Beccles,

.. including, of course, hostelries. The Swan looked good, but it’s ‘fancy high teas’ vibe wasn’t to our taste, so we had lunch in the Crown. Good choice! What a lunch: for Jude, lovely fish and chips (as traditional as the ice cream) and for me the best (and reasonably priced) fish platter I have had in years.

It is impossible to avoid Adnams in Southwold, so to round off our walk, we had to sample their produce, this time in the Lord Nelson. Given that, by now, grey had given way to blue, we headed into the sheltered garden. There to accompany Southwold’s best, a Turtle Bug Podops inunctus sharing our table, rather a strange choice of habitat for what is normally a ground-hugging insect. And of course gulls, their raucous cries and beady eyes, laced with the sight and sound of tinkling Goldfinches from the rooftops. A lovely end to the day.

Our final day, and the weather changed again. Sun pretty much all the way, although yesterday’s cold easterly airflow persisted. We decided to round off our Beccles experience with breakfast at Twyfords Café, recommended to us by a passing local the day previously. Not our best decision: the porridge was cold, with mushy frozen strawberries, the breakfast bap hard to get through and served with a salad full of peppers (whoever heard of such a thing at 9am?), and all highly overpriced. We live and learn.

So back on the bus we headed to Bungay, the neighbouring town up the Waveney valley. Here we were treated once again to a feast of historical interest and listed buildings, this time 190 of them, although some in the town centre were in a sad state of disrepair.

One semi-derelict hulk drew us to it, having all the appearance of a former workhouse, although we have not been able to find any reference to such online. The old brickwork did however have a couple of ferns, Maidenhair Spleenwort and Wall Rue, not a common feature in the dry heart of East Anglia, and Danish Scurvy-grass formed a band at the base of the wall, looking very different to the squat, salt-sprayed plants on our major road-verges.

 

Situated on high ground within a large meander of the river, almost every road heads downhill. With plenty of trees on the slopes and low-lying pastoral marshes it would be idyllic, if not for the curse of the infernal combustion engine. Cars everywhere, and few provisions for pedestrians to cross the roads; at least the vast majority of political signs (it was election day) were for the Green Party, so perhaps there is potential for change…

Three churches form a flock in the middle of town, and in each of those, the green message seems to be getting through: no holy mowers eradicating every scrap of life from God’s (three) Acres! Some of the invertebrates taking advantage were a soldier-beetle Cantharis rustica, harvestman Phalangium opilio and spider Philodromus sp.

Of the churches, the most externally ornate was St Edmunds, most visually pleasing was Holy Trinity, with its distinctive flint, brick and stone round tower…

… while largest and most interesting was St Mary’s, with the priory ruins tucked behind. When the church was struck by lightning in 1577, there appeared a ‘black Hell Hound’ which has led to Bungay becoming associated with the legend of Black Shuck, tales of whom haunt the whole coastline of East Anglia.

Bigod Castle, a tumbledown Norman edifice, forms the other centrepiece of the town, although currently under repair it is both closed to the public and clad in scaffolding, making it rather difficult to photograph attractively.

The greenspace around the twin towers is partly enclosed by what is left of the castle wall, and it was here in warming sunlight that we saw the most insects of our entire trip, including Tree Bumblebee, Painted Lady, Snout Hoverfly and Brown-tail Moth caterpillars, the latter apparently feeding upon Plane leaves.

But what was most remarkable was the sheer number of aquatic insects, here on the highest, driest part of town. Banded Demoiselles and Large Red Damselflies are, like many of their group, prone to wandering to feed but much more surprising were the shimmering clouds of Ephemera vulgata mayflies bouncing up and down over the mown grass. These don’t feed as adults, and given they live in that stage for only a day or so, it all seems very risky to move so far from the waters in which they breed.

All that was left to do was sip a welcome pint in The Fleece; their menu looked very enticing, but we ran out of time, before it was back onto the bus, this time to our rail interchange at Diss. Just a couple of hours to see our fourth town, and that was quite probably enough, notwithstanding it apparently being John Betjeman’s favourite Norfolk town…

We started at Diss Mere, a natural glacial ice-melt lake. Some 3ha in extent, and reportedly 6m deep, with a further 20m of mud below that (pretty much ‘bottomless’ as per its reputation through history), it is a significant landscape feature although at least on our visit supporting only a few motley Mallards and gulls.

Part flanked by the old part of Diss, the remainder is an extensive recreational park, unimaginatively close-mown. And given the number of kids in the playback, and that we needed the loo, we felt that the firmly closed toilet block, with no information on where there might be facilities, was a big fail by Diss Town Council.

So after al fresco relief, we walked the Heritage Triangle, a town centre regeneration initiative based around its historic commercial heart, and many of the town’s 157 listed buildings.

We could see the potential, but for busy through roads, incomplete pedestrianisation and the proliferation of vape shops and the like… it all just felt a bit unloved. But there remains an undercurrent of history, with St Mary’s Church perched impressively above the Market Place, once again rather simple inside, although the 18th century Decalogue Board on the west wall was impressive.

A hint of urban green was provided by the churchyard and other wayside corners, including another Philodromus spider inhibiting the Yews, again the unfamiliar statuesque variety of Danish Scurvy-grass, and what may be the rarely recorded parasitic wasp Otoblastus luteomarginatus. ‘Rarely recorded’ rather than ‘rare’ because there are few people recording them so the grand total of 13 records in the UK on the National Biodiversity Network map is very likely an under-representation.

In fact a couple of hours was more than enough time for our needs to explore Diss, and the final half hour was relaxing, looking over the Mere from the garden of the Waterfront Inn, with one final stop on our trek to the station being at the town sign, featuring the 1213 (alleged) murder of Matilda, daughter of the Lord of the Manor and reputedly the inspiration for the character Maid Marian, by a messenger from King John bearing a bad egg. And all because the big bad king’s advances to her were spurned.

And so ended our three-day break that felt more like a week. We certainly walked the miles, taking in the sights of each place, and everywhere finding wildlife to accompany the history, food and drink. And every bus was on time – we love our bus-passes even more, and they are sure to feature more in our trips from now on!

The Colne Valley, from Chappel to Chalkney Wood, and back…

Britain's Wildlife, Bug & Botany Walks, WildEssex

The mid-reaches of the River Colne, around Chappel, constitute a lovely, quintessentially Essex, mixed agricultural landscape, with extensive pasturelands in the valley bottom, either side of the clear, flowing river; arable on the high ground, parcelled up between hedgerows; and woodland, much of it ancient, on the valley slopes, embracing the spring-lines. An ideal place for long walks, not expecting to see anything rare, just Spring in all her glory, so last week I did that twice, first a full day with Naturetrek and two days later, a half day with #WildEssex.

The first walk started rainy, the first rain for a month, but soon gave way to sunshine, although a stiff northeast breeze kept the temperature down. Two days later, wall to wall deep blue skies, and lighter winds from a warmer, more southerly direction. The blue backcloth was ideal to appreciate the rainbow of greens, each tree providing its own interpretation before high summer dust dulls the difference.

Starting from Chappel, wheezing Greenfinches, twittering Swallows and willows heavily infested with Mistletoe kicked the walks off, along with a fascinating cluster of historic buildings reflecting the diversity of bricks made in the local brickworks. The churchyard wall in particular features the old bricks, and supports a wealth of mosses and lichens, crevice plants like Ivy-leaved Toadflax, and ones such as Red Valerian and Greater Celandine using the wall as a storage heater to mimic their Mediterranean mountain homes.

Heading upriver, the Colne flows between shaded banks, clad in Nettles, pinpricked white with Garlic Mustard: too early for the fluttering sprites, the Banded Demoiselles of summer, the waters were already providing flying life, in the form of Alderflies and mayflies.

The open pastureland of the valley bottom is not especially diverse botanically, although there was Meadow Foxtail in the drier areas, Lesser Pond-sedge and Cuckooflower where damper, and a triumvirate of buttercups – Meadow, Bulbous and Creeping.

Hedgerows of Hawthorn in full fragrant bloom and Blackthorn, most well over but some bizarrely still in tight bud, provided shelter for patrolling Orange Tips and Green-veined Whites, and the last, tatty overwintering Commas alongside the first, scintillating blue Holly Blues, while Whitethroats, both Common and Lesser, sang from within, and Ash leaves and Field Maple flowers introduced their vivid yellow-green colour to the surroundings.

Buzzards, maybe three pairs, soared and displayed overhead, joined by a lone Red Kite, as a Mistle Thrush proclaimed territory atop the largest Oak.

Cowpats! And happily, cowpats with insect holes, suggesting these cattle have not been treated with ivermectins which kill the rich diversity of dung. And sure enough two days later, a lot warmer, and the Yellow Dung-flies were out in force, feeding and frolicking.

Back into more sheltered areas. Evergreen Alkanet amongst the Stinging Nettles provided boundless opportunities for Dark-edged Beeflies and ladybirds, mostly 7-spot but with Cream-spot and 14-spot as well. Several St Mark’s Flies rested alongside the first Red-headed Cardinal Beetles of the year, all under the watchful gaze of basking Nursery-web Spiders.

A sunny wall and wooden fence, providing security for an isolated mansion off the beaten track, was teeming with Zebra Jumping-spiders, one of whom had caught a meal in the form of a Pond Olive mayfly (not that I realised it until I looked at my photos back at home!). And in another bit of post-hoc reassessment, a harvestman on that fence would appear to be Platybunus pinetorum. First found in Britain as recently as 2010 and known mostly from more northern areas, this will be (if confirmed) the first record from Essex, and quite possibly East Anglia.

Close to the river, there were three species of damselfly: several Large Reds, always the first to emerge in the spring, with single female Azure and Blue-tailed, the latter so fresh it was practically colourless, a so-called teneral specimen.

The final upstream section took us past fields of magnificent Longhorn cattle to one of the many former mills on the river, where Grey and Pied Wagtails fed, House Martins chirruped and swooped, a Kingfisher was heard, and a Little Egret bore witness to the inexorable march of climate collapse…

Thence into Chalkney Wood, a place I have been coming to for forty years. An inspiration! A Renaissance wood! A phoenix rising from the ashes of destructive early 20th century forestry policy: when I first knew it, Chalkney’s ancient woodland roots were buried under serried ranks of non-native conifer trees. Fortunately we recognised that those who attempted to destroy the old trees a generation previously had not been very efficient; green shoots of hope remained. And when in 1987 the plight of ancient woods was highlighted by the ‘hurricane’ that swept through our lands in October, it didn’t take too much of a push to guide the Forestry Commission down the path towards a sustainable future.

The conifers were removed ahead of their intended lifespan, light flooded back, life responded accordingly, and now thirty years later it is almost impossible to differentiate that part of the wood from the smaller portion that Essex County Council had presciently been able to rescue from the jaws of doom years before…

Over vast swathes of the wood, Bluebells were only just past their best, a colour scheme interrupted only on some damper patches where white Wild Garlic dominated. And both smelled as good as they looked.

 

Other flowers included cushions of Greater Stitchwort and Ground Ivy, especially around the wood edge, and Bugle and Wood Speedwell lining the rides:

The dominant coppice trees are Hornbeam and Small-leaved Lime, the latter particularly beautiful as its pink-flushed buds open, and Hollies (of both sexes) flowered on the woodbanks. Blackcaps and Chiffchaffs sang everywhere, with a lovely Garden Warbler both days around the lunch stop.

The sunny rides were also the place to find insects, including Speckled Wood, Orange Footman moth, Birch Shieldbug, the hoverfly Pipiza noctiluca, and two ‘longhorns’, Green Longhorn Moth and the beetle Rhagium mordax, rather scattered in Essex, being restricted to ancient woodland habitats.

The return journey was along the hill tops (yes, Essex does have hills!) giving wonderful views over the unspoilt valley. Long may it remain that way. Dandelions as always attracted insects, here a Gooden’s Nomad-bee, and sheltered nettlebeds harboured Hairy Shield-bugs and a Cinnamon Bug. And stunted hedgerow Oaks showed the large, spongy oak-apple galls of the wasp Biorhiza pallida.

The eroded path gave a window into local geology, flint-rich chalky boulder clay deposited by the last outpost of the Anglian Glaciation, before at least the Naturetrek group plunged through a waist-high Rape field. It was surprising just how many insects there were in the monoculture, from Small Whites to Honeybees and several others. We can only hope the Rape was not bearing a lethal dose of neonicotinoid pesticides…

And finally everyone got to pay homage to Chappel Viaduct, up close and personal, at its very best in slanting sunlight, a graphic masterpiece of Victorian architecture, as sound now as when it was built 160 years ago. Worth the effort of visiting in itself, especially for those travelling by train and seeing views both of and from. All rounded off for some with a welcome drink at The Swan: the wild side of Essex at its best!

The Wild Side of Beth Chatto Gardens: Spring in full flight

Beth Chatto Gardens, Britain's Wildlife, WildEssex, WildWivenhoe

April saw me heading to the gardens on three occasions in mid-month, twice to lead walks (two for the National Garden Scheme and the first two of my summer monthly WildSide walks) and one just me and my camera, a moment of peace in a mad world.

Five walks on three days in just a little over a week might seem like overkill, but this time of year it really isn’t. In the full flight of spring, nature can change perceptibly every few days. And this year was no exception, especially as the lack of rain for about five weeks and rising temperatures completely changed track from the past wet winter, and pushed us into incipient drought. These mood swings of nature, actually more like handbrake turns on a sixpence, are what we must expect and live with in the climatically weirded future. And so must our garden plants and wildlife. Some will not be able to, so my advice as always is get out there now and appreciate just what riches we have!

The speed of change was almost frightening. Take that wonderful yellow peony Paeonia mlokosewitschii (aka Molly the Witch), in tight bud on my first visit, full flower six days later and three days futher on, starting to fade. A plant of highly transient glory, but a favourite of the garden bees!

Many other flowers of course, a plethora of potential food sources for insects and a delight to photograph:

And not to be outdone, the unfurling fern fronds and red maple foliage added their own highlights to the masterpiece of spring:

Butterflies have yet to emerge in real force, especially since the overwinterers have started to fade. But the whites are putting on a strong show, with Small, Green-veined and Orange Tip by the first visit, Large White joining them by the final date, along with the first Green Hairstreak and Speckled Wood.

The first visit also coincided with the first emergence of the year of Large Red Damselflies, always the earliest of its group to appear, along with other aquatic insects like Alder-flies, and remarkable numbers of adult Iris Sawflies, on and around the emergent iris leaves and whose larvae will be responsible for nibbled edges to leaves this summer.

Back on dry land, there were plenty of the usual bumblebees, including rather more Red-tailed than we have come to expect in recent years:

Hairy-footed Flower-bees were still patrolling the borders of comfrey and lungwort, not only for food but also for each other, with many interactions between amorous males and seemingly uninterested females noted! Other solitary bees included Yellow-legged and Chocolate Mining-bees, one of the furrow-bees, and Flavous Nomad-bee. The several species of nomad-bee seem to be in remarkable numbers this spring compared with previous years…

Two others from the same insect group, Hymenoptera, were queen Common Wasps, feeding and rasping wood to build their nests with, and the currant galls of the spring generation of the Spangle Gall Wasp on Oak catkins:

Moving to flies, some of the most numerous were the Bibio species. first B. lanigerus and B. anglicus, with the first true St Mark’s Fly B. marci on the first visit. 14th April is early for this species, named because it emerges on or around St Mark’s Day, 25th April. During the second visit, they were very numerous, and by the third, almost gone – perhaps down the throats of birds, as they are favourites of Swallows.

Hoverflies increased greatly through the month, and included many flower-flies Syrphus sp., together with Batman and Footballer Hoverflies , and lots of Epistrophe eligans.

Other easily recognised flies were Yellow Dung-flies, the dance-fly Empis tessellata and the parasite-fly Tachina fera…

… along with many other less distinctive, but still important , parts of our garden’s biodiversity.

Ladybirds are still more abundant than I have ever seen before at this time of year, the offspring no doubt of those that arrived en masse last July. And while most are 7-spots, a selection of other species such as 14-spot Ladybird is starting to emerge.

Bugs included the first Harpocera thoracica of the year, with plenty of Hairy and Green Shield-bugs, and also a lovely find of a mating pair of Gorse Shield-bugs, a rather uncommon creature in the garden.

On the reservoir, Dabchicks were singing and a pair of Tufted Ducks has seemingly settled in. All around the garden, birds are in song, residents like Greenfinch, Robin, Goldcrest and Song Thrush, alongsideside the summer visitors, especially Chiffchaff and Blackcap.

On the first two visits a Cetti’s Warbler was singing on the edge of the garden, only the third record for the site, but on the third visit its apparent territory had been filled by a singing Whitethroat, again not common in the garden. And overhead plenty of action too, from feeding Swallows to displaying Buzzards, flyover Egyptian Geese and Red Kites, along with Mediterranean Gulls and a Lesser Black-backed Gull, both rarely appearing in our sights.

Another fantastic month in the Beth Chatto Gardens, the incidental nature reserve!

Back to my Yorkshire roots: Bridlington & York

Britain's Wildlife, Eleanor's photos, Travel by Bus, Travel by Rail

For some time now, Eleanor has been asking if ‘we can go to see where Papa grew up’, so for our April short break it was off to Yorkshire. The hottest day of April for many years was our travel day: the trains were busy but blue skies made for some lovely sights, from King’s Cross to Ally Pally to Peterborough Cathedral to the Humber Bridge…

After changing trains in Hull, I really started to notice the differences from my youth. It is more than a decade since I have visited the area, and more like half a century since I resided here for more than a day or two, so to see Red Kites and Buzzards as we crossed the plains of Holderness was to me remarkable. And the number of Roe Deer grazing the open fields … never were they the stuff of my childhood. But as for Brid itself, it was reassuringly familiar. Horrifyingly familiar. Such is the bittersweet recollection of times past!

All the sights were still there: the harbour, the boats, the promenade, the churches, the guesthouses and the crowds…

… all flanked by the waves that still roll in relentlessly under the watchful gaze of Flamborough Head, with Herring Gulls everywhere stealing sandwiches, and Turnstones trotting along the harbour wall.

And lifting spirits with their wild cries, Kittiwakes. They started to breed on harbour-front houses as I grew up, but there are now many fewer than when I left for university. Seems they are not treated with the same respect as we found in Lowestoft last year.

My memory of the Floral Pavilion, a winter garden feature of the sea front, is its smell, of chrysanthemum from the blooms and lavender from the soap of the ancient incumbents (perhaps a bit of hyperbole there!). Anyway, this visit it proved to be just what we all needed: a safe soft-play area for Eleanor, and an adjacent bar and restaurant to keep us happy as she spent five hours hurtling around!

And the food there was really quite good, in contrast to several of the establishments we tried during our two-night stay. The Wetherspoons Prior John had sticky tables (what’s new!), but its surroundings are a sensitive re-use of a former Methodist Chapel.

But as for the Premier Inn restaurant, there were no saving graces. Breakfast was appalling, inedible, sporadic in appearance, the plates and cutlery, tables and chairs and carpets were all disgustingly filthy. That is my memory of Bridlington: a grey place with grey food…

On our full day in Brid, we hunted for my past: my childhood house, Grandma’s flat, my schools, even the land train I worked as a conductor on in summer. And not a blue plaque in sight! Every morning I awoke to a very particular sight, the reassuring familiarity of the Priory church, and that is still pretty much unchanged.

A magnificent building, this is only a small part of the vast pre-Dissolution Augustinian priory that was founded in 1113, its riches acquired on the back of a lucrative wool trade. And while the inside of the church was never a regular part of my youth, my older self – able to appreciate the architecture and art of such places in a secular way – was duly impressed.

From the outside, the church doesn’t have the forbidding blackness of my mind’s eye – presumably its stonework has been cleaned. The church has always evolved with the times, with a particularly marked restoration and remodelling by George Gilbert Scott in the mid-19th century. He built up the two towers deliberately asymmetrically to reflect contrasting architectural styles on the body of the church, the older tower in Early English style and the other in a more ornate perpendicular style.

The interior space is lofty…

… and full of fine details, including a lovely sculpture of St John of Bridlington and stone flooring filled with marine fossils:

There was also an interesting set of tapestries, dating from 1994-5, depicting the history of the Priory:

And one of the celebrated features of the church woodwork is the carved mouse figures courtesy of Robert ‘Mousey’ Thompson (1876-1955) and his descendants, furniture-makers based in nearby Kilburn, complete with child-friendly ‘hunt the mice’ guide!

Outside the church the Bayle Gate, again a constant part of my history, not least because I was entranced by the pinned, locally-caught Death’s-head Hawkmoth the museum had in its collection fifty years ago. But I had no idea that this, the former principal entrance to the Priory, is itself Grade I listed in its own right.

We had been hoping to head out by bus to Flamborough Head, but in the event the wind was too Siberian to make that a joyful prospect. So it didn’t really matter that the bus simply didn’t turn up, despite that the app was saying/lying it was ‘due’ and then had ‘departed’. This simply epitomises the Brid that needs to get itself into the 21st century: this day and age there is no reason why online resources are based on timetables rather than real life.

It was a mixed experience for me. I am not sure I ever want to return to a left-behind town with dead-end attitudes and the stench of Reform at every turn. Of course the birds of Flamborough and Bempton could be a reason to return, but I suspect the only thing that would draw us back for sure would be an organ recital in the Priory. The acoustics must be simply wonderful, and the organ is regarded as one of the finest in any British parish church, with its 32ft Contra Tuba pipe, the largest pedal reed in Europe apparently.

So on another sunny morning I was happy to wave goodbye to my past, albeit intrigued to find several Common Mourning-bees in the lee of a garden hedge, sheltered from the cold breeze. Now right at the northern extent of its British distribution, this again is something the younger me would not have been able to see in the area.

Our train took us over the rolling chalk landscape of the Yorkshire Wolds, and with a change at Seamer, through the Vale of Pickering, and pastures with tumbling displaying Lapwings. Then, passing by Kirkham Abbey and Skipwith Common, we pulled into York.

My first stint at university was at York and, freed from the parochial shackles of home, safe to say my memories of there are more positive. And we certainly found plenty to interest us all for a couple of days, including  formal attractions like the Jorvik centre, bringing life to the local Vikings.

The historic walls were an excellent introduction, a near-continuous elevated encirclement of the centre, the longest and most complete medieval town walls in England, interrupted only by the River Ouse, running for 3.4 km, built mainly in the 13th century on earlier Roman/Viking earthworks.

Views of history, of Wall-rue in the crevices, and close-up, tree canopy views of Sycamore bursting out:

And as the sun started to set, the Minster bells drew us ever closer. But not inside…who needs to see the interior (at great expense) when the sunset is flickering its flames over the limestone masterpiece?

Then there were the bustling streets like the Shambles, and historic buildings at every turn, including Clifford’s Tower.

 

One particular church, All Saints, Pavement caught our attention the following day, shelter from a shower and another mouse-hunt! When it was built it was on the only paved area of the city, hence its name. Grade I listed, it has a distinctive octagonal 15th-century lantern tower. In the medieval period, a lantern was hung from the tower to act as a beacon for travellers in the forest to the north. The church, first mentioned in the Domesday Book, is the burial place of 34 Lord Mayors. And on the door, a 12th-century knocker depicting the Mouth of Hell.

And on both days, when the sun came out, the highlight of York for us was the the Yorkshire Museum Gardens. We were hoping for Tansy Beetles but there were none showing here in their British stronghold. A nearby mural had to suffice!

But Eleanor got her ice-cream (both times!) and we all got to see the sights, including the Hospitium and the ruins of St Mary’s Abbey.

The gardens had plenty of interesting flowers and, at least out of the cold wind, a few Tapered Drone-flies and Orange-tailed Mining-bees, as well as Woodpigeons demolishing the Norway Maple flowers.

And the highlight of our holiday: the gardens were good for Eleanor too. Sometimes the Muse takes her, and she is happy for hours with a phone and some flowers. To finish this blog then, a selection of her photos from the Yorkshire Museum garden, photos I would be proud of. No names – just enjoy the world as seen through the eyes of an inquisitive eight-year-old! #ProudPapa.

   

 

A potter through history in east Colchester

Britain's Wildlife, Travel by Bus, WildEssex

The joys of a bus pass. Just hop on and off, and do things you have never done before. And so we did last week, a day of azure skies that set off the acid green spring tree sproutings to perfection.

I have lived in and around Colchester for four decades, Jude even longer than that. But the eastern approaches to town (I still can’t cope with the concept of it being a city!) have always been the journey, not the destination. Using the bus more, as we have recently, had hinted at pleasures hitherto unknown, so when the day was right to photograph buildings against the blue, out we headed…

We walked through time, albeit not in a linear fashion, darting between ancient and modern, along Old Heath Road, then Military Road and finally Queen Street. Our starting point was Winsley’s Almshouses, Grade II listed, dating from the foundation of the charity in 1728 although built around an earlier farmhouse that now forms the focal point with a chapel on the first floor.

Arthur Winsley was a wealthy 18th century wool and cloth dealer. He left much of his property and £500 to the almshouse charity in his will. Originally, there were just twelve almshouses, for ‘Twelve Ancient Men, that have lived well, and fallen into decay’, but in an ever-evolving site there are now 80 such properties following the gifts of further benefactors. And no longer are wives evicted on the death of their husband!

Colchester has long been a garrison town: indeed it is claimed to be the largest and first garrison town in Britain, founded as such in Roman times. Over the past couple of decades though the extensive training grounds that brought green into the centre of town have been built on and the barracks relegated to the outskirts. All that remains are road and pub names and the military church, now a Grade II* listed building.

Built in 1855 on a military cemetery from the Napoleonic wars three decades earlier, it was to serve soldiers in the Crimean War. It is believed to be the largest wooden church in England, a prefabricated wooden panel structure held together with 12-inch bolts, originally constructed by the same firm that built the Royal Albert Hall. The church became redundant in 2007, and there were fears that it might be allowed to fall into ruin until it became St John’s Orthodox Church.

Continuing towards the city centre, we came to the next set of historic listed almshouses, Winnock’s and Kendall’s Almshouses, either side of Military Road. These date back to charitable donations from 1678 and 1791 respectively, although as with Winsley’s they have benefited from further legacies over the subsequent centuries.

Close by, Jude remarked on the name of a side passage ‘Tram Folley’, next to what had the appearance of a ticket office. More investigation ensued, as neither of us had any idea that Colchester once had a electric tram system. It had a very short lifespan, just 25 years from 1904 after which it became uneconomic due to the increase of motorbuses and cars, but at a length of almost 10km, it linked North Station to both Lexden and the Hythe. How the city could do with that nowadays to encourage the elimination of cars!

Turns out the ‘ticket office’ we had noticed was in fact part of the tram depot. At least its fascia was preserved (backed by an electricity substation) when the main depot site was redeveloped in 2020. And when we investigated further along the Folley we found the last remaining section of Colchester tramlines, again preserved within the context of the modern development of student flats, thanks it seems to the sterling efforts of Colchester Civic Society and former MP Sir Bob Russell, the epitome of a great constituency MP.

Almost at the end of Military Road now, there was a series of cottages that seemed too consistent not to be historic, but we have not been able to find anything about them. Were they tramworkers’ cottages, right next to the depot? Or could they be more almshouses, as the chimney stacks bear the same cross motif as at least some of those at Winsley’s?

Right at the end of the road, at the junction with Magdalen Street, was another distinctive and listed building, late 18th century with the distinctive Dutch gable profile so characteristic of places with historic links with the Low Countries. Once the Red Catt Inn, it then became the Railway Tavern until it called last orders in 1909.

Moving then to modern times, the Colchester Magistrates’ Court was built as recently as 2012, but that doesn’t make it any less appealing for photography, especially with the terracotta cladding set against deep blue.

Up Queen Street, next stop was St Botolph’s Church, built in 1837 on part of the former Priory, where the monastic kitchens and refectory were. This too is listed at Grade II and is described as showing a powerful neo-Norman style; although it has weathered dark, its tower was built in white brick giving it the local nickname of ‘The White Elephant’, a name of some assonance with Firstsite’s ‘Golden Banana’ where we ended our walk!

But first more history, and spectacular history at that, St Botolph’s Priory, one of Colchester’s greatest hidden secrets, appreciated by seemingly few people apart from those indulging in antisocial fraternising among the arches and columns.

Founded about 1100, St Botolph’s was one of the first Augustinian priories in England, and is an impressive example of early Norman architecture. Built in flint and reused Roman brick, with massive circular pillars, round arches and an elaborate, ornately decorated west wall, it was badly damaged by cannon fire during the Civil War siege of 1648 leaving it in the ruinous state we see today, albeit Grade I listed.

Right alongside the Priory ruins, a gentle, south-facing, hot slope brought natural history into our historical musings. White Comfrey with intensely blue Evergreen Alkanet and scattered Star-of-Bethlehem were drawing in numerous insects, including many ladybirds (7-spots, Harlequins and single 2-spot and 14-spot)…

… also hoverflies and Lesser St Mark’s Flies, Dock Bug and Green Shieldbug…

.. and lots of Hairy-footed Flower-bees, the black females feeding while the paler males chased them around, and on closer inspection, several smaller black bees with white spots on the sides of their abdomen. These were Common Mourning-bees, cuckoo-bees that don’t build their own nests but lay eggs in the burrows of Hairy-footed Flower-bees, where their larvae consume the host’s pollen food supply. First time we have seen this bee, it doesn’t seem to be especially common in Essex, though could easily be overlooked as ‘just another Hairy-foot’.

In a brief update from a return visit to this hotspot a few days later, mainly to try and get better photographs of the Mourning-bees, there were none to be seen, although there were throngs of their host species. But what I did find was a wonderful trio of bugs, scuttling through the leaf litter, all in very good numbers. Rhyparochromus vulgaris and Forget-me-not Shieldbugs are both rather uncommon in Essex, and Firebugs are a new arrival, a new kid on the block, still spreading since their main arrival at the start of the decade.

And on that second occasion in very warm sunshine, solitary bees were very active, visiting the Comfrey: Chocolate and Yellow-legged Mining-bees were the most numerous.

Back to buildings, we were just heading up Queen Street when we can upon the former bus depot, not so long ago the home of diesel fumes, spilt oil and buses in bits. Now reinvented and renovated it has become The Digital Forum, a ‘collaborative workspace focused on new and emerging businesses and technologies’, a great example of ‘corporate-speak’. Opened in 2025, at least when we poked our noses inside we found that a section of wall has been allowed to retain its palimpsest paintwork, each colour a layer of its past history.

And finally, our destination, the aforementioned Golden Banana. Firstsite opened in 1995, it is defiantly modern, but actually where we were headed was into the post-modern world of the Meanwhile Garden.

Becoming a brownfield site is the ultimate fate of all we create as a species, and the good news is that biodiversity thrives within the detritus of civilization. We have monitored its colonization over the past couple of years and here are just a few examples of what we saw this time: Colt’s-foot in flower and seed, 10-spot Ladybird, and our first site record of the rather anomalous moth Dahlica triquetella. This is a parthenogenetic bagworm moth, known in Britain only as wingless females that spend almost every moment of their life in their distinctive triangular bag, a silken structure decorated with bits of grit from their environment and inedible bits of the insects that form at least part of their diet. A fascinating end to a fine morning’s walk.

 

 

The Wild Side of Beth Chatto Gardens: March goes out like a lamb…

Beth Chatto Gardens, Britain's Wildlife, WildEssex, WildWivenhoe

It was the last day of the month, and the day dawned mizzly. When I arrived in the Gardens, it had stopped drifting down from the cloud, but moisture had congealed on every surface, mercurial drops turning every leaf into a work of art.

As the air dried out so the spring flowers perked up; only two weeks since my previous visit, but the whole floral palette had changed. Spring happens so quickly when the weather allows, a whole unfurling package of distinct microseasons, just a few days each.

Two plants for me were particularly noteworthy. The dramatic parasitic Purple Toothwort had erupted next to the Willow Room, and several of the damper borders were laced with a lime filigree of Town-hall-clock. One of my favourite unassuming native woodland plants, where else can it be seen bringing the sense of wildwood into our daily lives?

Birds were at their spring-singing best, with the first Blackcap joining the many Chiffchaffs, and up to half-a-dozen vocal males of both Chaffinch and Greenfinch. And in complete contrast, small groups of both Grey-lag Geese and Egyptian Geese flew over squawking.

After the dampening, it took the insects a while to become active, but the still warmth coaxed a few out. Two plants are the superstar attractors at this moment. Firstly, there is Skimmia, each plant producing a pool of sublime scent in the still, moist air, attractive to us, but also crucially also to pollinators, especially bumblebees and blowflies.

And then Euphorbia! So many different species and cultivars now in flower. All recognisably spurges, with their unique inflorescence structure known as a cyathium…

… but each with a different suite of shapes and colour of the obvious nectar glands.

And they really pull in the insects of all sorts, open inflorescences with lots of pollen and masses of nectar that are now doing the heavy lifting of feeding our insects. There were ladybirds everywhere…

… soggy solitary bees …

… and flies of all sorts, including several hoverflies, including a pair of Platycheirus: P. albimanus and P. scutatus.

For me Euphorbia is one of the most valuable, but overlooked, genera for insects in the garden, with one or more forms flowering almost throughout the year. Is ‘Euphorbiophile’ a real word? If so, I am one of them!

Along the Great Ouse: St Ives, Huntingdon & Godmanchester

Britain's Wildlife, Travel by Bus, Travel by Rail

Sadly it was a bit of a return to winter for our March short break in St Ives (the Cambridgeshire one!), staying at the very comfortable and warm coaching inn, the Golden Lion. Very comfortably priced as well: taking advantage of a Black Friday deal last November, we got two nights’ for the two of us B&B for the princely sum of just £107.50! We do like the Coaching Inn group of hotels, and especially when you can get deals like that…

The wind may have been spearing like darts of ice across the Fens, but the trip got off to a good start with our first experience of the Cambridge Guided Busway. Yes it’s a bus, which means it is free for us, but it runs to time on dedicated routes, including a former railway line that runs through the wetland complex of Fen Drayton Lakes.

A pretty small settlement, St Ives felt very different to what we had expected, more affluent than the insular caricature of so many places in the Fens. Flowing round the town is the Great Ouse, a river we last saw at King’s Lynn, some 80km downstream, in December 2025. And the similarities between the two towns were marked, in terms of the riverfront architecture influenced by that of the near-continent. Although now above the tidal limit, St Ives was also an important port in historic times.

A centrepiece feature is the ancient stone bridge, dating to about 1420, with a chapel incorporated mid-span. The chapel now seems a bit bare and forlorn, especially given some of its other former uses as a private dwelling and a hostelry.

The bridge and the adjacent wharfside are made of lovely honey-coloured oolitic limestone, just about as local a building stone as is possible here in the Fens: it was quarried from Barnack, just north of Peterborough, about 40km away and presumably transported overland as the Middle Level Navigation that links the Nene and Great Ouse had not then been created.

The bridge was partially destroyed for defensive reasons during the Civil War by Parliamentary forces under Cromwell (someone who will feature throughout this blog), the two southern arches replaced by drawbridges. When repaired several decades later, bridge-building techniques had evolved such the the new arches were round, rather than the gently pointed original Gothic ones. Nowadays, the bridge is traffic-free and a delight to potter over, and on to the 19th century causeway on a viaduct with 55 low arches across the water meadows.

One house next to the bridge is particularly fine and caught our attention, Jacobean in style with a Dutch gable, and polychrome brick and ‘diapering’ (I have learned something!), decorative brickwork with repeated geometric patterns. But its listing makes no reference to any use than as a domestic dwelling: perhaps it  was built by a brickmaker (there were many in these parts, given the lack of local building stone) as a permanent advertising hoarding?

As soon as we disembarked the bus at the bus station, my eyes alit on interesting plants, Rue-leaved Saxifrage and Common Whitlow-grass in the paving cracks. Although common enough nationally, I was surprised to see them given what I assumed would be a marshland town.

But as we walked around we came across examples of genuine old stonework, where one would expect to find such plants, particularly around the remains of the Priory founded in 1017 when the settlement was known as Slepe. These walls are made of the same limestone as the bridge, but rubble rather than dressed blocks.

Then an amble around the rest of the old town proved that St Ives has much to offer, including a statue commemorating Oliver Cromwell:

Next day we turned our attention to Huntingdon, birthplace of Cromwell, but surprisingly seeming to lack the statuary of St Ives. It does have an interesting little museum that focuses upon his life and times, its exhibits including the recently acquired Cromwell’s watch.

When I asked the question ‘Cromwell – hero or villain?’ the helpful museum attendant said very appositely ‘It depends whether or not you are Irish!’. Cromwell is clearly a Marmite-man, hence the fact that Huntingdon it seems didn’t want a celebratory statue, so St Ives stepped into the breach. Our monarchy has provided many reasons to justify its abolition – in more recent times one just has to consider the Royals’ flirting with fascism in the ’30s and young girls in the noughties – but only Oliver Cromwell achieved it, in response to the attempted power-grab of Charles 1, seeking a return to absolute monarchy.

But history judges those in power by their failures, not successes: just ask Tony Blair… And Cromwell’s way of dealing with the ‘Irish problem’ was nothing short of Puritanical genocide: his purported religious tolerance extended only to the tolerance of other forms of Protestantism!

And in a classic demonstration of the fact that ‘Power Corrupts’ (nothing changes!), Cromwell’s end came about in no small part from a rebellion in his own ranks, the Levellers’ concerns that the democracy they had been promised was not coming. It is a sad indictment of the hold that those who ‘have’ on society that the rebels’ demands in 1646 were pretty similar to the demands of those massacred at Peterloo in 1819, the Chartists around 1850 and those of the Suffragettes at the start of the 20th century.

But I digress! Museums should make you think (as we found at Manchester [Peterloo] and Newport [Chartists] respectively), and this one certainly did. But it also provided us with welcome shelter as the day was turning into one of very sharp showers, including some heavy hailstorms:

With the weather changing rapidly throughout the day as the showers sped over, it was clearly one of those days to stay within easy reach of places of shelter: museums, churches and pubs! The two churches were St Mary’s, closed, but with Rue-leaved Saxifrage on the older graves…

… and All Saints’, very much open to all and providing a vital town centre community function for those in need. Both churches were low-rise, at least compared with the numerous besteepled ones we saw elsewhere, but why? It may come from a residual puritanical streak, or something as prosaic as the underlying ground conditions being insufficiently stable to support a tall steeple.

And so onto the pubs, again two in particular. We do like a galleried coaching inn (see the George in London and the New Inn in Gloucester from our previous trips), and the George in Huntingdon was in similarly pretty good condition, albeit not with an atmosphere that encouraged us to stay…

The pub we did decide to stay and enjoy was Sandford House, a fine Wetherspoons conversion of a former chapel, post office and private residence of Charles Sandford Windover, a major Victorian carriage-builder in the area. Given that Huntingdon lies on the old Great North Road, midway between York and London, it seems a very appropriate place to have both carriage builders’ and coaching inns.

And in Sandford House, Jude was thrilled to find the luxurious opulence of the ladies’ loos!

Other historic buildings abounded in the heart of the town….

… but one in particular attracted our attention, while we were waiting at a bus stop. Thanks to the magic of Google Lens, it was identified as the home of William Cowper, which sent us down another investigative rabbit-hole over a glass or two the following evening!

William Cowper was a troubled and, ultimately, tragic poet, hymn writer and Abolitionist in the 18th century, who was repeatedly institutionalised for ‘insanity’ through his life. Being what some might mockingly refer to as a ‘confirmed bachelor’, his rejection of both heteronormative and homonormative traits clearly created (or maybe derived from?) internal emotional tension. And his most famous legacy, the words ‘God moves in mysterious ways’ assume a tragic role as his attempt to rationalise these conflicts.

Huntingdon also has a fine stone bridge over the River Great Ouse, this one dating back to 1332, a century or so older than that at St Ives, reflecting the convergence of several historic roads and trading routes on this stretch of river.

Down by the river, the sun came out warmly, illuminating some early-flowering Greater Celandine, and banks of White Comfrey, the latter being visited by an avidly feeding female Hairy-footed Flower-bee being closely attended by a couple of hopeful suitors.

Unfortunately this bridge is not car-free, but it is bypassed by a footbridge. So across we went and found ourselves in Godmanchester (apparently still ‘Gumster’ to some older residents); on that side of the bridge lies an impressive (converted) mill building, and a small group of listed cottages around Bridge Place.

We took a bus into the town centre but walked back, accompanied by Red Kites overhead, when we realised how close the two towns are! Another church, St Mary the Virgin, this one with a spire, albeit one that is hollow and letting light through, no doubt to keep weight down. And lacking almost any trace of interior ornament, although the exterior gargoyles are fearsome!

The riverside was a timeless view of middle England, complete with ‘Chinese Bridge’…

… and an eel-pass to provide Eels with a chance to surmount human obstacles in the tamed river on their return from the Sargasso Sea. The lock walls formed a natural damp garden with both Hemlock Water-dropwort and Hart’s-tongue Fern.

Our third and final day dawned with another about-face weatherwise. Crystal blue skies, and the wind while still with a northern chill had dropped to a gentle breeze, such that inl the slightest shelter the burgeoning spring warmth made for a very pleasant day. Even Oliver seemed very pleased with himself, as the Free Church spire speared into the blue:

First we walked upriver, along the Waits, another former wharfage. The Norris Museum was well worth a look, and just across the road there was a very handsome building, the Methodist Hall. In sunlight, the ferruginous rocks from which it is built were particularly beautiful. These are carrstone, another fairly local stone, quarried from the King’s Lynn area; these very rocks reputedly constitute the last bargeload of rock brought to this wharf at the very start of the 20th century.

Carrstone is the basal layer of the cliffs at Hunstanton, an iron-rich sandstone dating from just before the Cretaceous chalk seas, and particularly suited for building given that its surface hardens considerably on weathering.

In the river at this point lies Holt Island nature reserve, although we were unable to access it due to flooding. But the song of a myriad Chiffchaffs drifted across the Backwater, over the heads of Mallards, Coots and Moorhens all in various stages of friskiness, and a melanic Grey Squirrel fed unconcernedly on the boardwalk.

On the riverbank, All Saints Church with its imposing steeple made for very attractive views:

But the best sighting of our trip came from looking down into the still waters: a shoal of fishes like no other, thousands upon thousands of Roach, up to about 15cm long, weaving around like a forest of waterweed. And then erupting in huge murmurations, spooked by a couple of Mallards swimming harmlessly over, creating an audible swish and stirring up a protective shroud of bottom-silt.

Finally it was back to see the old bridge in good light. Walking over, there were lots of swans and ducks…

… but then walking back twenty minutes later the Sand Martins had arrived. Half-a-dozen or more, presumably just in from Africa, and within another ten minutes they were busy investigating the drainage pipes coming out of the bridge as potential nest sites.

The wind had dropped, the sun was hot, and all was well with Spring!

 

 

 

The far out west (of East Anglia!) – Ashdon & Bartlow

Britain's Wildlife, WildEssex

The far north-west of Essex has long been a bit of a mystery to me, so it was good last week when the chance arose to explore awhile before giving a talk to the Ashdon Gardening Club. Barely 15km from the hi-tech heart of the country, Cambridge, Ashdon does feel very out of the way. Nestled by the river Granta, and seemingly without any mobile signal, it is enveloped in the chalkscape of the greater Chilterns. The chalk heights reach their Essex peak at Chrishall (147m) west of the M11, but rolling hills clad in chalky boulder clay extend the foothills eastwards.

On the hill high above the town is a fine windmill, reached after a bit of a nervous drive a few hundred metres up a single track road with bends and high hedges. But least there is a carpark at the top!

Ashdon Windmill, recently restored to working order by the local community, was built in 1757 and operated commercially until 1912, after which it went through several cycles of dereliction and repair.

On the windswept peak (at just over 100 metres altitude) is obviously a good place for a windmill, and also to get a feel for the well-wooded, farmed landscape, the fields often featuring Fallow Deer.

Back down in the village, the church was worth a visit, in a fine setting with the historic Vicarage and Guildhall, now well away from the heart of the village, perhaps a shift in response to the Black Death.

Then it was up the road a short way to the village of Bartlow. Now entirely within the county of Cambridgeshire, until a boundary review last century the land to the south of the River Granta was the last outpost of Essex. Indeed, about five kilometres to the east, I noticed that the three counties of Essex, Cambridgeshire and Suffolk converge, and wondered briefly if it would worth hunting the join. Then I looked at the satellite photo, showing it among a slew of arable fields, and had second thoughts. After all, having straddled the Equator and the Greenwich meridian, I realise that artificial lines have no lasting meaning!

Bartlow Church was also worth a visit, although fairly unremarkable inside; it is one of just two Cambridgeshire churches with round towers. And that tower is the oldest part of current church, dating back to perhaps the late 11th century.

In the afternoon heat, the churchyard was buzzing with life. Patches of Red Dead-nettles, Primroses and Sweet Violets were in full bloom, attracting Peacock butterflies, while Brimstones and Dark-edged Beeflies were everywhere, and Nursery-web Spiders were out basking on many a leaf.

The Primrose patches included one plant with slightly darker flowers and flowers raised on a common stalk. That might suggest Oxlip, perhaps the most iconic plant of the borderlands of Cambridgeshire, Suffolk and Essex, but it wasn’t quite right. From closer examination it appeared to be one of the ‘False Oxlip’ Primula hybrids, most likely Primrose x Cowslip.

Then it was south across the Granta into ‘old Essex’, over the old railway line (sadly closed as recently as 1967) until the distinctive looming shapes of the Bartlow Hills hove into view. A series of three large Roman tumuli, these are the visitable part of a group of seven earthworks, of which the remainder have been much reduced in height.

For a long time erroneously associated with King Cnut and the dead from the Battle of Assandun in 1016, subsequent excavation has demonstrated them to be the grave-mounds from a wealthy family of the 1st or 2nd century AD. Apparently all manner of artefacts were recovered, including large wooden chests, decorated vessels in bronze, glass and pottery and an iron folding chair, most of which were lost in a fire at Bartlow Hall.

The tallest mound, at 15 metres in height, is claimed as the largest Roman barrow north of the Alps, and well worth the slog up the steps. And following me up was a very special insect, a male Black Oil-beetle Meloe proscarabaeus. In Essex we know this only from a few sea walls and sand dunes, and on the NBN map it appears this is its only Cambridgeshire site, apart from a couple of spots on the edge of the Fens.

From the top you can peer down into modern Essex, and contemplate the changes over time. For me as a botanist, that includes the losses of our native plants. Bartlow Hills is justly famed as the only Essex locality for the beautiful Pasqueflower, apparently just now coming into flower on time (‘Pasque’ in Old French = ‘Easter’) in its heartlands. Sadly, however no longer on Bartlow Hills: it was last seen there around the start of the 20th century, just at the time the land on which the hills stand was reassigned to Cambridgeshire.

 

The Wild Side of Beth Chatto Gardens: Spring is unleashed…!

Beth Chatto Gardens, Britain's Wildlife, WildEssex, WildWivenhoe

There comes a time every spring when one suddenly realises that whatever the vagaries of the British weather, spring is here to stay. The tipping point is sometimes as early as the start of March, but in other years it can be a good month later. In 2026 it seems to have come right in the middle of those extremes.

While the first two weeks of March saw a few glimmers of warmth, the overall impression was of cool days, sometimes breezy, damp (if not as downright wet as the preceding winter) and the occasional snatch of welcome sun. When Jude and I visited in the first week, it was misty and grey all day, rather chilly, and mist turning to fog in the afternoon. So we weren’t really expecting to see much in the way of insect life, and most of what we did find – masses of Seven-spot Ladybirds – were well hunkered-down or wrapped in a fur coat like this Common Earwig…

Of course Jude with her incredibly acute close vision also found some noteworthy stuff, including two colour-forms of Ten-spot Ladybird. Although this is one of the commoner British species, remarkably it seems to be the first time it has been found in the garden, at least according to our as yet incomplete biolisting. The two-spotted form was sharing a cosy niche with an Acorn Weevil and a spider.

Also new for the records, certainly overlooked in the past, was the moss Bryum capillare, its spore capsules standing bright and proud in the gloom.

And the same comments apply to the first record from the garden of a Yew gall caused by the fly Taxomyia taxi. This may be present wherever there is Yew, in gardens, parks and the wild, but it seems always to be under-recorded: the Essex Field Club map has only two spots on it.

Almost apologetically in the mirk the really special spring flowers like species daffodils and tulips were starting to appear. And Chiffchaffs were singing, probably newly in from their Mediterranean wintering sites, carried here a little prematurely by the Sahara-dust-laden winds at the end of February.

But two weeks later it was a very different picture. A couple of warm sunny days saw spring unleashed into the lives and hearts of a myriad of happy, smiling visitors. The Chiffchaffs, now perhaps half-a-dozen, expressed the joy of the season very effectively. As did two singing Stock Doves, the first time I have noticed territorial behaviour in the garden, and (now I come to think of it) possibly the first Stock Doves I have ever recorded there. Adding to the chorus were Chaffinches, at least three male Goldcrests and a Green Woodpecker in song, along with the mewling calls of displaying Buzzards overhead.

Four species of butterfly were on the wing: Comma, Peacock, Red Admiral and a rapid fly-past couple of male Brimstones. All species that overwinter as adults, it won’t be long before the spring-emergers like Orange Tips are with us!

Bees too, with bumbles (Buff-tailed and Red-tailed queens, the latter for me the first of the year) and lots of Honeybees especially on Skimmia ‘Kew Green’ and Scilla  bifolia.

The Scilla was also the focus for many solitary bees, including Andrena dorsata and A. minutula agg.

Ladybirds were everywhere, as seems to be the norm this year, AND now getting active, strutting their stuff as predators, pollinators and partners; most were Seven-spots with just a few Harlequins.

Several Dark-edged Beeflies were feeding or resting around the flowery borders: the first beeflies of spring are always a thrill!

And shieldbugs were also out in force, mostly Green Shieldbugs greening up nicely out of their brown winter plumage, together with a few Hairy Shieldbugs.

As with the previous visit, there were also new records for the Gardens. A couple of very common species whose names have seemingly evaded being written down anywhere in the past were the Common Pond-skater Gerris lacustris and the ink-cap fungus Coprinellus micaceus, equally common although of course only fleetingly visible when its fruiting bodies emerge.

On Anemone blanda there was the distinctive stripy Orange-legged Furrow-bee Halictus rubicundus, new to the garden and indeed with only a few records, mostly coastal, in the Tendring district.

And an exciting new bug for the garden was the ground- bug Graptopeltus lynceus. This is traditionally associated with Echium species but seems increasingly to be moving to other Boraginaceae, of which we have lots; it was very close to a flowering patch of Trachystemon. It is classed as Rare in Essex, with just eight scattered records, the nearest being one just west of Colchester.

And of course spring flowers of every description, no hint of apology now and a wonderful pick-me-up after a dreary old winter!

Beth Chatto Gardens, THE place to be at this time of year. Where else would you find Lesser Celandines blooming in the lawns rather than being hounded out as ‘weeds’? Do visit, and help Rewild your Minds.

A tale of two churches – Westminster & Kensington

Britain's Wildlife, Travel by Rail

A flying visit to London gave us the opportunity to visit somewhere we have been meaning to for some time, inspired by the weekly blog  A London Inheritance. In contrast to Westminster Abbey (£31 for adults to get in!) down the road, Westminster Cathedral is free, although we would have happily paid for the lift up to the viewing platform atop the campanile had it been open. Next time!

Whereas the Abbey is a typical, old, 13th Century Gothic one, the Cathedral is more modern, dating to the very end of the 19th Century. From the outside it is visually impressive with alternating strata of red brick and Portland stone, reminiscent of Italian churches we have seen in Florence and Orvieto, in a neo-Byzantine architectural style.

Inside is an oddly unsettling experience, with richly ornate side-chapels at the lower levels, but higher up what felt like a void of black (or blackened?) bricks. And the ceiling below the three vast brick domes is similarly unlit and featureless. I later read that this is typical of Byzantine building practices where the decoration is applied once the shell is complete, rather than designed into the structure, so its interior could be considered ‘work in progress’. Together it constitutes the 50th largest church in the world, in terms of its interior area.

The decorated areas are many and varied:

But for me, most interesting were the introduced aspects of the natural world, especially the mosaic of St Francis surrounded by an array of very recognisable European birds…

… and the magnificent naturally ornate marble columns and cladding, in all manner of shapes and patterns.

We were heading to the Royal Albert Hall and decided to walk, through impressive streetscapes new to us, although few photos as I was wanting to conserve my phone battery for the trip home.

But then we came across St Columba’s church, the absolute antithesis of the cathedral. Whereas the Catholic cathedral is busy, both with people and visually, the Church of Scotland church was as calm and undemanding as a still, summer lochside (minus the midges!). After the former, rather ordinary looking Victorian church was destroyed in the Blitz, the new church rose distinctively with bell-topped tower from the ashes in plain Portland stone.

Inside was such a feeling of peace and tranquillity we just had to sit down and let it wash over us. Plain stone, the only real colour coming from the stained glass arranged as a saltire.

It all felt strangely familiar, especially when we discovered the soaring heights in the wings of the church.  Only later did we find out why: it was designed by Sir Edward Maufe, whose masterwork of Guildford Cathedral we had some admired only just over a year ago.

The contrast between these churches could not have been greater. Both were remarkable in their own way. Such differences in ways of worshipping the same God, and a rich store of imagery and experience for those of us with no religious persuasion at all!

We have never really visited this part of the London before, apart from the great museums,  but certainly we will be back: the big houses, the mews, monumental buildings like Brompton Oratory, and of course the pubs – our meal in the Queen’s Arms was excellent despite the raucous atmosphere!

The Wild Side of Essex: Spring on the Colne Estuary

Britain's Wildlife, Cockaynes Reserve, WildEssex, WildWivenhoe

‘Spring’ perhaps more in theory than practice! It may have been mid-March, but the very cool breeze searing across the estuary and grey skies for much of the day made it feel like a return to winter. And as a reflection of the very wet winter past, another theme of the day was mud, especially on the clays lower down, as opposed to the Thames sands and gravels that cap the Essex Alps. But Naturetrek groups carry on regardless!

Starting around Ferry Marsh, all was quiet apart from the whispering churrs of Long-tailed Tits and angry chatter of a couple of Cetti’s Warblers, as so often only briefly glimpsed.

Down at the river upstream of Wivenhoe, the tide was falling away and the exposed mud supported Redshanks and Oystercatchers, with Black-tailed Godwits and Teals feeding in the shallows, and a Little Egret on the saltmarsh.

Along Wivenhoe waterfront, a chance to explore the changing socioeconomic trends that have shaped the town over the past fifty years ago as well as the eternal struggle against surge tides, the now-familiar rare plants were all present: Jersey Cudweed, Four-leaved Allseed and White Ramping-fumitory. Only the latter had flowers, but what a show!

Below the Barrier and into the wider estuary, more of the same waders, including a large flock of 400 or so Black-tailed Godwits, and the first few Curlews. But no smaller species, nor any Avocets: presumably these were hunkered down out of the biting wind in a more sheltered creek. But there were good numbers of Shelduck wading through the sloppy mud, single Cormorant and Great Crested Grebe fishing in the channel and Buzzards circling over the woods.

Along the seawall, especially on the warmer, south-facing slope, Hairy Bittercress and Red Dead-nettle were flowering, the latter a magnet for the few queen bumblebees foraging, making the most of their fur coats to be active when no other insects were.

As soon as we got into the shelter of Grange Wood, the temperature rocketed, and the first of several Chiffchaffs started to sing, probably ones that arrived along with Sahara dust last week. The Silver Birch trees were covered in Birch Bracket fungi, while on windblown twigs there were both Orange Brain Fungus and Stereum hirsutum.

Cherry-plum flowers were just past their peak, while those of Blackthorn were just starting to burst. A precocious Rhododendron was in full flower and the first Alexanders flowers were erupting, soon to become the most important insect forage before the full flush of spring.

And the shady pools were just crying out for Beavers!

For lunch we were back in the chill wind, but rewarded with flocks of Wigeons and Brent Geese, with a trio of Mute Swans surprisingly grazing on the saltmarsh. A Red Kite, presumably one of the local breeders, drifted low overhead and Skylarks were singing from the fields, bringing the promise of spring even in the teeth of an icy wind.

Heading up the hill to the top of the Essex Alps, moving from clay to gravel, we passed numerous vast pollards and coppice stools, mostly Oak but also Holly, boundary features of the ancient wood and the old trackway of Cutthroat Lane. Celandines were flowering, along with the very first Bluebells, amid the sprouting spring greens of Garlic Mustard and (more menacingly) Hemlock.

A Great Spotted Woodpecker and Jay showed themselves briefly along the lane, above large patches of fruiting, presumably ancient, Butcher’s Broom. And in the open at the end of the lane, acid-green in the verge highlighted a patch of Early Meadow-grass. Although we have known this plant close to the tide for the past five or so years, this is the first time I have found it inland round here.

Heading into Cockaynes Reserve, the volume of bird song increased, with Robins, Great Tits and Chiffchaffs featuring prominently. Sallow and Alder flowers were out, along with luxuriant Gorse, attracting numerous bees and flies.

The lichen heath seems to get more extensive every time I visit, and the Bunny Bee colony was coming to life in the admittedly weak sunshine, while a Little Grebe sang from the gravel pits and Long-tailed Tits seemed to be prospecting for a nest site.

Then through Villa Wood, a magnificent showing of Scarlet Elf-cups, highlighting the feature without which probably the reserve would never have come into being.

Heading back along the crest of the hill, the pastureland was graced not by the usual pair of Egyptian Geese, but three pairs and a singleton. From there the verges of Ballast Quay Lane were in fine flower, including Sweet Violets and the first few Three-cornered Leeks. Crossing Wivenhoe Brook, a peep over the parapet showed the continued presence of Water Crickets, the only local place I know for this bug.

Bringing us at the end of of a great day’s walk to Old George, our ‘celebrity’ old Oak tree. Chance for me to relate the saga of despair and hope, one which should never have happened but for the avarice of the insurance company and the acquiescence of the Town Council in contriving to hide from scrutiny the ‘evidence’ by which it has been condemned. Fortunately now, at great expense to the Protectors (and more still needed!), his future now lies in the reasoned hands of the High Court…

A couple of murky days in East London

Britain's Wildlife, Travel by Bus, Travel by Rail

Early March saw us heading to London for a gig in Docklands, but as always we tried to maximise our fun by building a short break around it. So when we arrived at Stratford it was a right turn, out by bus to Hackney and London Fields, inspired and intrigued by a recent London Inheritance blog.

The walk from the bus stop took us past some impressive buildings, including 5 King Edward’s Road, a 1920s clothing factory now converted to residential in a very pleasing style. And just across the road, the first of many welcome places of refreshment, this a coffee stop in the Mare Street Market.

The day (indeed the whole of our trip) was unremittingly dull, but the Flower Sellers sculpture/installation in London Fields certainly cheered things up. Joyful, with allusions to the former use of the area as a ‘staging post’ for livestock heading for their final destination of Smithfield Market, that dates back only to the 1980s, but now feels as timeless as the large Plane trees in the Fields themselves.

The London Planes harboured numerous Rose-ringed Parakeets (of course!), some trunks surrounded by a halo of flowering Sweet Violets, and throngs of happy people revelling in the Spring, even in the grey gloom of the day.

The larger trees showed clearly the unreliability of bark as an identification feature, that on the primary trunk being grey and deeply fissured, here with a spider’s nest, but on the younger stems, the more expected flaking mosaic of colour.

And those trees that had reached the end of their life were being recycled naturally by fungi of several sorts, interspersed with the orange tufts of a terrestrial alga, Trentepohlia.

Approaching lunchtime with darkening skies, a pub was in order. The Pub on the Park was functional, albeit rather soulless while delivering the necessary refreshment. But close by, the Cat & Mutton was altogether more welcoming, a genuinely historic hostelry (established 1729) which made us want to linger, especially as the skies had by now opened! Good surroundings, good beer, and very good food. We even discovered the reason for its apparently odd name: originally the ‘Cattle and Shoulder of Mutton’ it clearly had a function serving the meat market traders.

By the time lunch was over, it was really quite unpleasant weatherwise, so we headed by bus to Docklands, and our hotel, a very pleasant (and extremely reasonably priced) high-rise Travelodge right next to Bow Creek. Up we went to floor 13, and we were thrilled to see the view over Poplar to the City, with the beautiful Brutalist edifice of Balfron Tower, one of the Goldfinger-prints on the London landscape, taking centre stage!

From there it was an easy ride into Canary Wharf by DLR, for our evening’s entertainment on the Theatreship (Trappist Afterland, The Gentle Good and Henry Parker).

Next morning, it was at least dry although no less gloomy than previously. Down at the Bow Creek nature reserve, a Grey Heron and several Shelducks were feeding happily in the shadow of looming hi-rise, as the song of Cetti’s Warblers echoed around the concrete canyons.

Being low tide, muddy margins were exposed and were frequented by Oystercatchers, while Teals dabbled in the shallows.

Heading up the tidal River Lee/Lea, our first destination was Cody Dock, a redevelopment of a disused dock space, with sustainability at its heart. We felt very much at home, especially with the very fine coffee and breakfast inside us, in one of the vital edgelands of the river.

One of the features of the site is the Rolling Bridge, a novel, unique design that will ultimately allow the water access once again to and from the Dock. Cleverly counterweighted, it runs on a wavy track and can easily be operated single-handedly (apparently)!

Approaching the entrance, Elaeagnus x submacrophylla was in full fruit, while some of its leaves were galled and distorted, probably attacked by the Elaeagnus Sucker psyllid Cacopsylla fulguralis, originally from Japan but now spreading widely in the south of England.

The vegetation in the planters harboured several different-looking, but ultimately unidentifiable flies…

… along with Sage Planthoppers, and a couple of interesting  snails, Kentish Snail and Girdled Snail, both native in more southerly parts of Europe and now spreading here, especially in urban habitats.

As we continued upriver, we saw or heard a couple of fly-by Kingfishers, together with more non-native, spreading molluscs: the terrestrial Wrinkled Snail and huge numbers of Asiatic Clams deposited on the path presumably by gulls trying the break open the shells. This species arrived as recently as 1997; it is now well-established in the Thames, the Norfolk Broads and the Great Ouse system, and still spreading.

 

Planted Hazel bushes alongside the path were in flower, but noticeable mainly by the abundance of Big Bud galls, caused by a microscopic mite.

As we approached Stratford, there were some interesting sculptures forming The Line public art trail, including a double-helix of shopping trolleys, and several trees with abundant lichens on their trunks, including Flavoparmelia caperata and (rather green) Sunburst Lichen, together with orange patches of the parasitic lichenicolous fungus Erythricium aurantiacum.

Looking back downstream, the Balfron Tower loomed large in the landscape, while in the other direction appeared the equally remarkable sculptural skeletons of the old gasometers of the Bromley-by-Bow Gas Works:

From this point the river becomes more braided and corralled into locks and mill pools of Three Mills Island, a beautifully preserved series of 18th century tide-mills, with Cormorants roosting atop the turrets.

And across the sewage works, tantalising glimpses of the ornate Byzantine-styled tower of Abbey Mills Pumping Station, a key part of Bazalgette’s mid-19th century grand plan to clean up the River Thames.

And so onto the Greenway, a raised walkway on the embankment formed by the Northern Outfall Sewer. Here there was Green Alkanet in good flower, its blooming brought forward no doubt by the urban heat-island effect, fruiting Old Man’s Beard, the Pumping Station from a different angle (we really must try and visit on one of its open days!), and the remarkable row of listed cottages built for the workforce in 1865.

All that was left was to wander into Stratford, for food and drink in the Abbey Tap, our final pub of the trip, as we waited for our train home!