BeenThere-DoneThat Blog

‘B’ is for Bluebells. We went to a local wood last Sunday to see these.

Today was a lovely sunny day so we took ourselves off to Epping Forest. We went to an area known as Almshouse Plain and after a little walking we arrived at Cuckoo Brook which snakes its way along the bottom of its shallow valley. The rather tortuous route is known as meandering and the individual curves as meanders.

If you look carefully you should be able to see two complete U-bends in the picture.

After following the stream for a while we moved off to the Cuckoo Pits. Why ‘Cuckoo Pits’? Gravel was extracted here many, many years ago on a small scale and the pits left by the extraction were near the Cuckoo Brook - so …

Some of the pits are now water filled and have become established ponds. We were walking near one of these when Amanda said “Did you hear that noise - it sounded like a snake going into the water” and then we saw a small Grass Snake swimming away from the bank and into the cover of some reeds. Then, about a hundred yards further on, we came across this:

How’s that for another set of meanders on a fine specimen of a Grass Snake (Natrix natrix) and not at all venemous.

We had an enjoyable day altogether and returned home in the late afternoon.

P.S. After lunch, post snake, we went to another area of the forest known as Mount Pleasant and walked through Little Monk Wood to Court Hill and this old tree rather caught my eye - I think it must have been that root system and I just had to add a picture of it.

We walked back to our car via Bell Ringers Hollow and Great Monk Wood. All these ecclesiastical terms won’t surprise you when you realise that this area of Epping Forest was used as a major route by monks travelling to and from Waltham Abbey.

Marie and Lisa’s trip to Great Britain didn’t go according to plan. A short while before departure Lisa contracted an infection but decided she was well enough to go and they both arrived in Colchester on Wednesday 1st April as planned.

On Thursday Amanda and I travelled to Colchester and all four of us walked round Colchester and saw the castle, Timperley’s, the Balkerne Gate and the roman wall, the timber-framed cottages by the river and Castle Park. Our final location was the ruins of St. Botolph’s Priory. I haven’t included photographs of the places that we visited as they can be seen on the web site Colchester pages however just to prove that Marie and Lisa were really there I’ve included this picture.

We arrived in Colchester next morning, Friday, expecting to take them both out for the day only to find that Lisa’s infection had flared up again and she’d had very little sleep. She had decided to go back home the following day, Saturday, and to stay in their rented cottage while we took Marie out. It was such a shame that, having come all that way, she was having to go home because of some rotten ole bacteria.

We took Marie to Finchingfield and Thaxted and tomorrow, Saturday, she was going to London with Lisa and was going to do some shopping before returning to Colchester. We arranged to take Marie to Dedham Vale on Sunday.

We heard that Lisa arrived home without problems and is, apparently, on the mend. The three of us went off to Dedham on Sunday, walked to  Flatford then up to East Bergholt and back to Dedham. As we had some time to spare we decided to explore the nearby villages of Stoke-by-Nayland and Nayland and both turned out to be picturesque little villages with some very interesting old buildings including this one in Stoke-by-Nayland.

After looking around Stoke-by-Nayland we moved on to Nayland.

That person on the pavement desperately trying to look like a local and failing dismally is, of course, Marie. After leaving Nayland we took Marie back to Colchester and Marie decided that tomorrow she’d like to see Cambridge.

On Monday we collected Marie and drove to one of the Park & Ride sites around Cambridge. They do have a very well organised Park & Ride service in Cambridge with buses leaving the car parks very frequently.

Most of the places we visited are listed on the Cambridge page but one view that isn’t listed is this one:

A spy-in-the-sky view of Marie and I taken by Amanda from the top of the tower of St. Mary’s Church. We were all quite tired by the end of the afternoon and had agreed that Marie would come over from Colchester by bus to our house to do a little local sightseeing on her final day in England.

On her last day, Tuesday, Marie came over to us and we all walked on public footpaths to Layer Marney Tower. On the way we saw a lot of Wood Anemonies in flower and heard a Skylark in the distance. After looking at Layer Marney Tower and exploring the local Tudor church we came back to our house for lunch and then, after lunch, we drove the short distance to Tollesbury.

I’ll leave you with this picture of Amanda and Marie about to be run down by a very large lightship.

That was our last day with Marie, leaving 3 pairs of very tired legs, after which she went back to Colchester on the bus and left for home the next day. She arrived home without problems albeit after a long and tiring journey.

We visited some friends yesterday who live in the village of Great Hallingbury on the edge of Hatfield Forest both of which are in Essex - but only just and both are very close to the border with Hertfordshire and quite close to the M11 and Stansted Airport. In spite of their proximity to the motorway and the airport it was very quiet.

Hatfield Forest is one of those places we’ve been frequently threatening to explore but haven’t yet.

I took this picture about a hundred yards from our friends’ house because the old tree stump was so well lit.

Perhaps we’ll do that exploring later this year.

On our Saffron Walden trip we also stopped briefly in the village of Radwinter just a few miles east of Saffron Walden to have a look at the church. We were unable to go inside because it was locked but we were able to see this rather unusual porch.

It is not unusual to see a porch with timber struts supporting the roof but a porch with a room above and built as a timber-framed structure is unusual. It apparently dates from 1350 the church having been built around 50 years earlier.

We likes it.

When we visited Saffron Walden in the north-west corner of Essex we also called in to a few ‘extra’ villages one of which was Hadstock. This is just a few miles north of Saffron Walden and very near the Cambridgeshire border. Hadstock is a picturesque little village although would not be considered as extra special.

Well - nothing extra special except for St. Botolph’s Church.

It does look, at first glance, like a fairly ordinary village chuch. Most of what you see was built by the Normans but it appears that they incorporated some parts of the previous church which was Saxon and dates from about 1020.

This is the entrance door as seen from inside the church porch and both the stone archway and the door are Saxon. That makes this door the oldest door (around 1000 years old) still in use in Great Britain and has been there since it was first hung on its hinges by the Saxon builders.

On the picture above there is some interesting Saxon carved decoration on the doorway column’s Capital and just below it.

Inside there is further evidence of the Saxon church as seen in the next picture.

This is a cruciform church and these stone bases were probably intended to support a central tower which was never built and now helps to support part of the Norman structure.

It is suggested that this is King Canute’s ‘Mynster’ church which he had built in 1020 to commemorate victory over Edmond Ironside at Assandun.

An amazing piece of history for such a small village.

Yesterday afternoon was nice and sunny with a little cloud about so we thought a short walk would be in order. We drove to ConyField Wood where we intended to walk through it to a little village on the far side. Cony, or Coney, is the old word for Rabbit in case you didn’t know.

At this time of the year the sun is getting quite low in the afternoon which does give some nice lighting effects.

Near the far side of the wood is a tumulus which we saw although I didn’t take a photograph of it because the Bracken growing all over it together with the wood all around seemed to make it look rather insignificant.

Having emerged from the other side of the wood the footpath continued across fields with the village, especially the church tower, now visible below. The shadow from the hedge on our left is quite dark and noticeable because of the height, or lack of it, of the sun.

We soon arrived in the village which, believe it or not, is called Messing and here is a photograph of the village sign to prove it.

Just opposite the sign is the village inn, The Old Crown, which has a reputation of providing good food although, as yet, we haven’t sampled it.

I took this next view from the edge of the village because it was a nice view but primarily because of the clouds. They form rows and are sharply cut off at the bottom giving the lower edges a very flat appearance. They might even interest the Cloud Appreciation Society.

We walked back the same way, across the fields and through the woods, to our car and drove home. A short, but very pleasant, walk.

No not that Oliver Cromwell. This Oliver Cromwell is a steam locomotive hauling one of the ‘Cathedral Express’ trains that run from London to various cathedral cities in England throughout the year.

This was the ‘Norfolkman’ which runs from London Liverpool Street Station to Norwich in Norfolk and passed through our nearest station, Kelvedon, in Essex today at around 11:30 AM. So off we went to try and get some ‘visuals’.

I was busy trying to get a good still photograph, of which the above is the result and I had only a few seconds in which to do it because the train was travelling very fast, whilst Amanda took this short video which is on YouTube. After processing by YouTube the resolution is not as good as the original.

All that preparation for sixteen seconds of video.

In complete contrast Amanda photographed this Comma butterfly in our garden later in the day.

Yesterday we went to St. Peter’s Chapel at Bradwell-on-Sea again. The chapel has been there a long time - about 1300 years (give or take a few days either way. ) and it’s so peaceful out there. I say ‘out there’ as one has to drive about 2 miles out of Bradwell village on a narrow lane that eventually stops and then walk another half-mile to the chapel. All around there is nothing but open space.

The inside is very simple as you can see.

We walked across the marshes to the beach where Amanda found an oyster, stranded when the tide went out, and put it back in the water (Bang goes that free snack).

Walking back across the marshes towards the chapel we came across some more of the same Sea Lavender that we had seen previously at Tollesbury.

You can see the little chapel in the background with Amanda, on the right, striding across the marsh.

We finished off our little trip with lunch in the King’s Head in Bradwell village. Nice food too!

Last Sunday was the annual open day of the Lightship ‘Trinity’ at Tollesbury and it was also sunny. We went last year and quite enjoyed it so we thought we’d do it again.

‘Trinity’ is anchored at the edge of a channel through the salt marshes so that when the tide is out it is left sitting on the mud. It’s then a simple matter of following the path through the marshes to the ship and walking on board. The clever bit is not to walk out there a little before high tide because you could then be stuck there, with the path under water, until the tide starts to recede.

We went up into the light tower, as we did last time, where I took this photograph.

It’s a picture of one of the light assemblies with the bulb in the centre and a concave mirror behind. The upside-down person on the left is me. If you look carefully you will be able to see the channel and the bell shaped grey area is the deck at the stern of the vessel.

Having been to the highest part of the ship we went straight down to one of the lowest parts - the engine room. This picture is of Amanda down in the engine room about to start up the ladder.

One of the nicest things wasn’t even on the ship it was the patches of Sea Lavender flowering in the marshes.

In this picture you can see one of the numerous channels which run through these marshes.

Another nice little trip.