Showing posts with label SSSI. Show all posts
Showing posts with label SSSI. Show all posts

Tuesday, 3 May 2011

Fire!



Yesterday fires broke out in four different areas of Swinley forest. 150 fire fighters from four fire and emergency services attended alongside police and ambulances. Forest Rangers were hauling water bowsers while a police helicopter overhead directed operations and was alert to fresh outbreaks.
Fire in Bracknell - Bank Holiday Monday 2nd May 2011 by Ian Emery
Image copyright Ian Emery
Strong swirling winds ensured that the fires spread rapidly in the dry undergrowth. The fire travelled underground as well as over the surface. There has been little significant rain for several weeks and the rich leaf mould covering the ground and the resin in the trees is highly combustible.

The skies were dark and the air was thick with smoke, the smell permeating everything. Emergency services are expected to remain on site until it is certain that the fires have been extinguished. Today a pall of smoke hangs over the forest and the wind is picking up again so that any small smouldering could be fanned into life afresh. It will be several days before we can resume our customary walks in Crowthorne Forest.

Some businesses and houses were evacuated yesterday and today local schools close to the forest boundaries have been closed. There has been no loss of life and for that we are thankful but the police will now be actively seeking the person or persons unknown who set the fires.

Last night we took the dogs to Simon’s Wood beyond the opposite end of the village but we could still see and smell the smoke, so today they will have a rest. It’s not good for their lungs – or ours – to breathe in smoky air.
You can just make out a fire appliance with its blue flashing light in the centre of the photo.
A week ago Barry reported fire and emergency services were called out. We thought it had been quenched. Maybe it was, but fire reappeared in the same area, so it seems that someone was determined to burn the forest. It is a Site of Special Scientific Interest, where nightjar, Dartford warbler and woodlark breed.  It is also one of the most important sites in the country for dragonflies and damselflies. 24 of the 38 species in the UK breed here.

Tuesday, 16 March 2010

ABC Wednesday I is for Institution


There are two institutions in the village, both well-known though for very different reasons. The first is Wellington College, an independent (fee-paying) educational establishment which was founded in 1859 by Queen Victoria and the Earl of Derby. It was established as a national monument to honour the Duke of Wellington, one of our most distinguished British military leaders.
Wellington College South Front
Photo courtesy of RTPeat and Wikimedia Commons
Initially it was intended as a charitable educational institution mainly for the orphaned sons of army officers. It is now fully co-educational and only a minority of students are sons and daughters of military officers.The College stands in 400 acres of beautiful wooded land within which is a Site of Special Scientific Interest, home to many unusual ants and spiders. The building and grounds have been used as film locations. ('Lords of Discipline' (1983), 'Thunderbirds' (2004))

Former students include the impressionist Rory Bremner, author Sebastian Faulks, actor Christopher Lee, writer George Orwell, singer Will Young and the rugby union players James Haskell and brothers Max and Thom Evans.
The governors of the College were responsible for the building of the local railway station. They put pressure on the directors of South Eastern Railway and contributed £500 towards the cost of building the station which was originally named 'Wellington College for Crowthorne.' It became simply 'Crowthorne' in 1928.
Photo courtesy of BBC
Four years later, at the other end of the village, Broadmoor Hospital was founded in 53 acres of land. It used to be known as the 'Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum', then a 'hospital for the criminally insane' and now, more correctly, as a high-security psychiatric hospital. It ceased to serve women in 2007 and now caters solely for men. Most of the patients, known in local common parlance as 'inmates' have severe mental illnesses and many also have personality disorders. In addition, most of the population of the hospital have been convicted, or found unfit to plead, in trials of serious crimes. Patients usually remain in the hospital for an average of six years but some have lived there for more than thirty years.In 1952 one of the 'patients' escaped and killed a local child; thereafter an alarm system was set up. This is tested every Monday morning at 10:00 am for two minutes and is based on WWII air-raid sirens. If someone escapes the alarm continues to sound. If not, the 'all-clear' sounds. All local schools within 15 miles can hear the hooters.
Many local people set their watches and clocks by the Broadmoor siren. One inmate timed his escape to coincide with the regular testing.
There have only been two occasions when the sirens have continued their wailing during the more than thirty years we have lived here. In the first instance I drove home from work with my very young children in the car (Barry was working abroad, of course!) negotiated the police checkpoints and reached my house, left the children in the car and approached cautiously. A neighbour came to reassure me and we duly went indoors and locked every door and window.
On the second occasion the escapee travelled swiftly to Europe and the sirens were eventually silenced! Reputedly it takes an hour to search the grounds before the alarm is sounded by which time the inmate might be anywhere in the locality. Once one man escaped and hid in a local house. Another gave himself up – the pace of life 'outside' was too fast and he preferred the security of the hospital.
Broadmoor is home to the mad, bad and dangerous to know. Come to Crowthorne - all human life is here!
Thanks must go to the ABC Wednesday team who organise and host this meme. If you are interested in more Is please click here.

Tuesday, 2 March 2010

Replanting after fire


The contrast between healthy growth and bleakness is merely glimpsed in this photograph
Last July a swathe of Crowthorne forest was destroyed by fire. It's almost certain it was deliberately set but the swift arrival of several fire appliances extinguished it though the smell of burning was in the air long after the flames were doused. The Scots Pines looked very sad, blackened and burnt. These trees have a very high resin content which means that once alight they burn fiercely.
A few days after the fire Nature has not yet asserted her dominance but the sterility, though shocking, will be transitory.
At ground level green soon reappeared though the trees remained blackened skeletons as reminders of someone's folly.
Young saplings in the foreground, 5 or 6-year-old trees in the midground and mature pines in the background. 
However, the forest is a working concern managed by the Forestry Commission and in February the burnt area was cleared and replanted with Scots Pine. In just seven or eight years these saplings will be approaching 6' in height. For the present they are spikes of green hopefulness.
Newly-turned and planted soil offers enticing scents.
Crowthorne Forest is one of three local Sites of Special Scientific importance, areas which are selected and monitored by English Nature because of their particular flora, fauna, geological or physical features. Reputed to have been a tract of Henry VIII's hunting forest it is also part of the internationally important Thames Basin Special Protection Area. Three rare European ground or low shrub-nesting birds breed here - the nightjar, Dartford warbler and woodlark. It is also one of the most important sites in the country for dragonflies and damselflies. 24 of the 38 species in the UK breed here.