May Day

The memorial woods down at Langley Vale, just the other side of the race course from us, have been there for a while, but somehow we had never got around to visiting in, in part because I thought it might be infested by the sort of outdoor art which I find irritating. But May Day was a fine, bright morning and we finally took the plunge.

The Woodland Trust of reference 1 provide the map at reference 2, also included above, which I found confusing. It was to be hoped that they were better at trees than they were with maps. But the Trust appear to have acquired a large block of land, bounded above by Walton Downs and below by the M25.

Correlating their map - on which I think the boundary is marked by dark green highlighting - with that from OS - on which the faint blue lines mark kilometre squares - is left as an exercise for the reader.

The Trust seem to have bought just about a square mile of land - 640 acres - for which, guessing, they must have paid a tidy sum at say £20,000 an acre. Bing's estimate was a bit wild, but Gemini says that the trust paid around half that back in 2014, say £6 million adding in as much again for putting the memorial wood together, and then its maintenance. What was most of Langley Bottom Farm, with a much smaller chunk of land, the farm buildings and so forth, now being the subject of a proposal for housing development. All of which seems eminently plausible.

Scottish National Libraries confirm the existence of Langley Bottom Farm, in the right place in 1914 or so, but do not add much otherwise. No doubt, with the clues provided by Gemini, I could do better if I worked at it.

Back at the wood itself, we found the car park easily enough, provided with (RingGo enabled) car parking spaces, a cycle rack and a couple of charging points but not much else. No facilities and no customers, which meant that the place was nice a quiet for us. And we set off on what we intended to be a stroll with a sit of a couple of hours of so.

To be greeted by a derelict tree. Was it a spot of chainsaw art? We decided not.

First up was a field which appeared to have been planted with hawthorn, leaving the original hedgerows and hedgerow trees intact. We had never been in a deciduous plantation and did not know what to expect, but I had been thinking in terms of big trees like beech and oak (maybe not ash given the present problems in that department), rather than small trees like hawthorn. It will be interesting to watch it grow over the years to come.

My impression was that they were not cutting the grass under the trees, but I may well be wrong about that. And I don't suppose watering the young trees is an option, so presumably they have chosen trees which can manage on the chalk downland without.

A rather different stretch of path.

By the end of our visit, we had come across quite a variety of planting: hawthorn, oak, beech, silver birch, aspen, mountain ash, whitebeam (as in the Screwfix passage, probably) and cherry. With this last being something of a surprise - but if it is wild cherry, I believe that they can grow to a fair size. A belief which is confirmed at reference 3. The cherry gets space at reference 1, so these trees were quite possibly just that. Something to be checked out on our next visit.

Plenty of twittering in the bushes, but no tweeting. No skylarks and no buzzards, both of which I had been expecting. No rabbit sign either.

For some reason, I thought an ash tree, with zoom onto the leaves being a bit inconclusive today. And Google Images not much help at all on this occasion.

Looking north, over one of the more military plantations, complete with some of the outdoor art. Grandstand visible on the horizon right.

We had wondered about deer, before coming across what is presumably a fence to keep the deer out of this planting. So a bit of a pest up here on the downs, as well as down on Epsom Common and on the allotments adjacent. But why only this plantation? I had thought deer ate young trees in a pretty indiscriminate way.

A rather clearer map showing the extent of the wood, even if the word 'walkies' rather jars. Perhaps dog walkers like the word.

In the event, we decided that we had had enough sun for one morning and took our picnic back home to take it in the kitchen. The folding chairs had had a rare outing, even if they had not come out of the boot.

A fine place though, military art notwithstanding. I dare say we will be back before too long.

Out for a second turn around the town in the afternoon, inter alia, checking up on the fine weeping cedar in Hook Road. All present and correct.

PS 1: on my way to this posting, I became curious about the amount of attention being given by Microsoft News to the will of James Dyson, the chap who has sold a lot of vacuum cleaners and who has decamped - at least in part - to Singapore. What I find is a lot of talk about a magic money tree - with his crop being £150m for a very modest investment about five years ago. The magic money tree in question is called Sentox Solutions, but when I click on the link provided I get taken to the Daily Mail. While Companies House offers the snap above. All very puzzling. Is is all a practical joke or worse?

PS 2: I also read that our Chancellor is too busy - possibly with party business rather than with government business - to do her slated fireside chat at the Global Risk Summit at the Guildhall Art Gallery. Will all those delegates who have paid to hear her get their money back? Was there ever going to be a real fire? It is cool enough indoors, this afternoon at Epsom.

I have not yet found out what is to be seen in the way of paintings at this gallery, but it looks as if it might be worth a visit. See reference 5.

While the summit is part of London Risk Week, where I dare say all the leading players will put in an appearance. Although there appears to be a lot of invitation only.

PS 3: Gemini confirms my thought that fireside chats (on the radio) were invented by Franklin Roosevelt, although well before the second war. He also tells me that, name notwithstanding, fiery noises were not added to the sound track.

References

Reference 1: https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/visiting-woods/woods/langley-vale-wood/.

Reference 2: https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/media/52678/langley-vale-wood-walking-map.pdf.

Reference 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prunus_avium.

Reference 4: https://www.theglobalcity.uk/global-risk-summit.

Reference 5: https://www.thecityofldn.com/directory/guildhall-art-gallery/.