Now Showing on Stockwood Open Space

 

The Open Space has - at last - got a couple of Interpretation Boards installed, one at the Whittock Road end and one at the main Stockwood Road entrance. They should encourage people to take a closer look at  what this wonderful but little known reserve has to offer.

Now's a good time to start, after the warm spell has seen the early flowers burst into life...

Cowslip - this one making a first appearance in the glade behind Whittock Square

Blackthorn (sloe) at the 'back door' entrance to the reserve, at Ilsyn Grove

detail of blackthorn blossom

Bluebells and celandine in the Ilsyngrove woodland

Primroses in the woodland edge of the orchid meadow

Snakes Head Fritillary, orchid meadow

Bullace blossom in the orchard edge

Dog Violets, Ilsyngrove woodland

Viola Alba, now carpeting the orchard floor since we cleared the brambles a few years back (thanks, DR, for keeping up the good work)

Wood Anenome at the foot of Ilsyngrove woodland

and finally something completely different - new arrivals that appeared in the cart-washing pond.  At least until the herons find them!

Ain't nature wonderful?

The footpath runs through a nature reserve. Among the wealth of wild flowers and trees, there's an abundance of birds, insects and mammals. At this time of year, there's plenty of wild blackberry and elderberry be enjoyed, too, to be followed by the sloes, and, if the squirrels don't get there first, some nuts.

There's not much unnatural noise, either; just the constant hum of traffic on the A4 at the Bath Road Park and Ride.

In the southern part of the reserve, volunteers from Friends of Stockwood Open Spaces have spent months clearing some of the thick undergrowth of bramble to regain access to the old orchard.

So far around 100 apple trees have been rediscovered, plus some pears, plums, and damsons. In October, there'll be an apple pressing day - locals can bring their own apples, or those freely gathered from the orchard, for pressing and go home with bottles of the fresh juice.

The Open Space is a free luxury - somewhere to escape to, to enjoy, to value - even to feed from.

But put a spade in the soil, and as likely as not its blade won't sink right in - there'll be a brick or other rubble, or a bit of old iron in the way. Between 1954 and 1978 this was the Stockwood Lane municipal tip, taking industrial, commercial and household waste. The footpath in the picture was the main access road, down which a procession of loaded wagons would bring the city's rubbish. Strictly, it isn't a landfill; like most tips, it was really a 'land-raise' operation, altering the natural topography of the countryside.

I'm not a great fan of landfill - it's generally the worst possible of options for all the 'stuff' that we no longer have any immediate use for. But thirty years on, this part of the Stockwood Open Space shows little evidence of this ugly period of its history. The wildlife and the fruits thrive, and the local people (those in the know) come to enjoy it.

Four or five miles to the west, another more controversial one-time landfill site, Parsonage Farm, is not being returned to nature so easily. Like Stockwood, this one was farmland commandeered for refuse disposal, and it received the same kind of treatment - but without the household waste. Now, it's become the battleground between those who want it protected as an Ashton Vale Town Green, and those who see it as a vital stepping stone for Bristol City's future success in the upper heights of English football. Possibly others see it as a way of making lots of money, but that's another story.

This Ashton Vale ex-landfill site is once again being dismissed in the comment columns of the Evening Post as a muddy field, a rubbish tip, a dog's toilet, or worse. Just the place for a dream stadium, fast-food outlets, car parking, a hotel, and the rest.

I don't doubt that the Stockwood Open Space could have been dismissed just as strongly a few years back.

It's our good fortune that it wasn't.

Uniting against the space invaders

Stockwood came alive twice on Tuesday in defence of its open spaces against the threat of their sale and development under the Parks and Green Spaces Strategy.

Until the bush telegraph got moving on Monday evening, no-one knew there was to be a meeting about it next morning. It turned out it had been called by the two ward councillors - at the request of the Evening Post, who wanted to do a story about it! So thank you, Onions of the Post. It's a meeting that wouldn't have happened without you.


Later on came the photo-op, as residents gathered at one of the threatened spaces (the level area behind Maple Close)

Meanwhile Friends of Stockwood Open Spaces (whose constitution commits them to 'promote the ...protection.... of the informal public open space of Stockwood') hope to organise a better publicised meeting, and have launched the new "Save Stockwood's Green Sites" web pages for those who don't want to see community assets sold off.

Stockwood Miscellany

......mostly for Stockwood people.

At last there's a chance to recycle a bit more plastic than bottles. There's a trial run of 'bring site' collections of other food containers, and one of the sites is Tescos. Click the picture for more detail of what you can and can't take.

One day, my child, there'll be kerbside collections of plastic waste.



Another innovation outside Tesco is this ever more unnavigable barrier to progress along NCN Route 3. This started as a clear path (and why not, there's a further barrier 100m on)... then the basic barrier was put in.. then they blocked one of the side gaps that provided the route of choice for most cyclists... then they blocked the other side. The lower bar stops anything passing under the barrier. Imagine trying to get a wheelchair, or a pushbike with a trailer full of recyclable plastic , through this.

More positively..



An orchid spotted on the Open Space, during a 'Friends of Stockwood Open Spaces' (FoSOS) guided walk a week ago. I'm told it's a hybrid.



Next, an advance invitation to help contain the spread of Japanese Knotweed on the Open Space. FoSOS have organised a session to restrain the advance of this invasive plant on Sunday June 7 starting at 10.30am at the top of Scotland Lane (junction with Stockwood Lane). Bring secateurs and work gloves.



Finally, a mystery object. Well, the mystery is how and why it got here. This half bag of animal bedding appeared by the brookside path to West Town Lane, just where a FoSOS team had done a clean-up a few weeks previously. It can't have been easy to get it to this off-road site... but then it can't have been easy to dump most of the stuff (like old bikes, and doors) that we'd collected there first time round.

Fortunately, we've found an alternative use for this particular item - as a mulch on garden paths, and a trial slug deterrent on some strawberries.