Dancersend

May Bank Holiday weekend, on Bottom Road between Tring and Wendover, a single-track road winding through green tunnels and burrowing deep into the Chilterns. We drive the full length of it searching for Dancersend Nature Reserve, without success, and without meeting another vehicle. It’s a quiet secluded stretch of bucolic country lane, absorbing us into its depths and hollows, where overgrown signposts are easily overlooked. Eventually we turn around and head back. Continue reading “Dancersend”

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Gamlingay

Further on down the road we came to Gamlingay, a familiar sounding place, its pretty name once heard and hard to forget. We got lunch at the Cock Inn while villagers hung out flags for St George. And I remembered that the church of St Mary is renowned for its medieval graffiti. Continue reading “Gamlingay”

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Hayley Wood

I’d sent out a request via Twitter saying we were planning a weekend in Cambridge and could anyone recommend a woodland walk nearby. I received an intriguing reply from Steve PocockOh, check out Hayley Wood to west of Cambridge. That was one of Oliver Rackham’s stomping grounds where he did a lot of his work on medieval woodlands. Features in his books. Continue reading “Hayley Wood”

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In Cambridge

As we walked into town we passed the back wall of Emmanuel College, overseen by the great Oriental Plane tree, Platanus orientalis, growing in the Fellows’ Garden. We tried to get a closer look but since neither of us are college fellows we had to be content to view it from a distance. Continue reading “In Cambridge”

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Arborealists In Lady Park Wood

A short film by Kashfi Halford about Lady Park Wood, a rare natural woodland in the Wye Valley, as seen through the eyes of The Arborealists, a group of artists with a shared love of trees. There is an exhibition inspired by their visit at Monmouth Museum from May until September, including work by Robert Amesbury Brooks, Graham Arnold, Richard Bavin, Philippa Beale, Ann Blockley, Karen Bowers, Guillaume Brandy, Emma Buckmaster, Tim Craven, Annabel Cullen, Francis Dalschaert, Tom Deakins, Jane Eaton, Alex Egan, Janet French, Jelly Green, Sarah Harding, Richard Hoare, Abi Kremer, Fiona McIntyre, Lesley Slight and Jacqueline Wedlake Hatton.

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Tangle

Oil paintings and watercolours by Jelly Green and bronze sculptures by Freddy Morris in the Rowley Gallery window throughout May. It’s a meeting of kindred spirits. Both artists are woodlanders, each in their own way exploring the beauty of the trees. Both have been artist-in-residence in various treehouses. Jelly has painted in the rainforests of Brazil and Borneo as well as in woods closer to home. Freddy loves to forage for fallen branches, looking for shapely specimens to cast in bronze. Continue reading “Tangle”

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