Rowley Gallery Blog
We’d just walked up the hill out of the village and were about to turn off the main road to follow the Icknield Way. I’m pointing at the fingerpost, map in hand, but with such a weird posture, as if I don’t really know which way to go at all. This was the summer I discovered sciatica and every footstep was a conscious effort. But walking was so much better than sitting. Continue reading “Walking Wallington”
There are some great old oak trees at Hollow Pond. Here’s one with a cave in its roots, just fit to crawl into. In my dreams. It was the last day of July and we were on a walk down memory lane. In the early 1980s Sue had an Acme house (Acme Housing Association helped artists find short-life living and studio space in what were essentially licensed squats) on Fillebrook Road in Leytonstone, now under the M11 link road. Continue reading “A Summer Walk In Epping Forest (3)”
It was a Monday morning in June and we were at Butler’s Retreat for a spicy shakshuka breakfast. It’s my favourite and always a great way to set you up for a good walk. But sadly it was off the menu so we settled for the much more prosaic scrambled eggs on toast. Rambled legs on toes. Continue reading “A Summer Walk In Epping Forest (2)”
We began on Golding’s Hill, at Broadstrood car park, where we met a man and a woman with a dog and a parrot. They were celebrating the parrot’s first birthday by taking it for a walk in the forest, in a transparent backpack with good views of the trees. We wished it many happy returns, then stretched our wings and flew off down the hill, along Green Ride. Continue reading “A Summer Walk In Epping Forest (1)”
I think I first knew of the Panshanger Oak after we’d walked a circuit from Tewin, Sunday 16th February 2019 BC (Before Covid). A No Entry sign on a path that had previously been open had sparked my curiosity. I later found references to an ancient oak tree, a hugely significant specimen, the oldest, widest, tallest oak in the land. The website for The Chilterns AONB declares it to be “the largest maiden, or clear-stemmed oak, in the country and is believed to have been planted by Queen Elizabeth I” but access is by appointment only. I called the recommended phone number repeatedly but got no reply. I also looked on the Ancient Tree Inventory website but they say it is Private – not visible from public access. Continue reading “The Panshanger Oak”
Jelly Green has brought us a windowful of wonders. Tour buses also bring sightseers to look at it. It’s a garden of delights. This time last year she was heavy with child, and as an expectant mother she’d been advised not to have the Covid vaccination. So she was staying clear of infection by keeping a low profile, waiting in lockdown, but still busy and venturing out into the woods and the quiet places to paint, and to paint, and to paint… Continue reading “The Wild Edges”
These ancient yew trees are in the churchyard at Hawkley in Hampshire. I’d discovered them via the Ancient Tree Inventory. We’d come down from London to meet Howard Phipps who was coming up from Salisbury with a windowful of wood engravings in the back of his car. And surprisingly we got there first, so I went looking for trees. Continue reading “A Walk From Hawkley”
Another Sunday church, another country walk. This was June last year, and another from the Hertfordshire Walks website. We started out at the church in St Paul’s Walden. I guessed it must be called St Paul’s, but when I searched online just now I found All Saints Church. And I also found its vicar is Canon Stephen Fielding, who we knew from St Mary Abbots in Kensington. What a small world! I wish now that we’d stopped to say hello. He had introduced a Living Advent Calendar to Kensington, so that the windows of local businesses became part of a borough-wide Christmas countdown. We had twice taken part at the Rowley Gallery with special window displays by Joseph Silcott in 2016 and Susie Freeman in 2017. Continue reading “St Paul’s Walden & Around”
Fools & Dreamers: Regenerating a Native Forest is a 30-minute documentary telling the story of Hinewai Nature Reserve, on New Zealand’s Banks Peninsula, and its kaitiaki/manager of 30 years, botanist Hugh Wilson. When, in 1987, Hugh let the local community know of his plans to allow the introduced ‘weed’ gorse to grow as a nurse canopy to regenerate farmland into native forest, people were not only skeptical but outright angry – the plan was the sort to be expected only of “fools and dreamers”.
Now considered a hero locally and across the country, Hugh oversees 1500 hectares resplendent in native forest, where birds and other wildlife are abundant and 47 known waterfalls are in permanent flow. He has proven without doubt that nature knows best – and that he is no fool.
Find out more about the film at foolsanddreamers.com.
St Andrew’s Church at Little Berkhamsted is, like so many village churches, a place of worship surrounded by trees. Ancient trees are often found in churchyards. I imagine they’re vestigial survivors of the original forest, before it was cleared for farming and agriculture. Or planted as replicas of the Garden of Eden. A woodland glade is a naturally consecrated place. Continue reading “Little Berkhamsted & Essendon”