Anglezarke- White Coppice Spring walk
Let’s go on a walk. It’s a cloudy but warm day at Anglezarke reservoir.
Wouldn’t you love to live here?
Zoomed in. Victorian farmhouse and cottages.
Beautiful views.
And lots of trees.
Old quarry. The stone probably made the local houses and stone walls.
Ripples on the water.
You can see how brackish the streams are which feed the reservoir. The water ends up in the towns neaby after being cleaned up. Water levels are low for the time of year due to the driest season in years.
Bilberry flowers. In Autumn small black fruit for pies are grown on this acidic soil lover. It isn’t a native of Oxfordshire so I haven’t tasted it but I’ve read that it is similar to blueberry but richer.
Twisted tree worthy of Halloween.
We walked at the edge of the woods.
Across a field or 2 of sheep.
Spring is just arriving and shaking off the Winter colours.
No one told this tree though. It got a lot of wind in that spot.
I had to share a pic of hedge laying (video in link). This is where an overgrown shrub has some branches and dead stuff removed and others a nick out of to get them to bend to earth level. The branches are then woven between stakes so they almost resemble a hurdle. The branches are still alive though so as they grow the hedge becomes denser with the new growth. In this way a hedge of the same native trees can continue for thousands of years. There is a saying that the more variety of plants in a hedge the older it is.
This tree is just realising it is Spring. When it is fully awake you wont see the branches for all the young leaves.
Old stone wall no longer needed. What a neat job though 100s of years ago and probably quarried locally by hand. Often a farm would have a place they took stone from on their own land. You can see them still as little dips often with trees in. Back then no planning permission was needed or forms to fill in for councils. You knew that if you didn’t build something well the first time you’d have to redo it.
Local weathered stone.
I can see why this was called White Moor.
A buzzard! We used to see these so often in Wales that we nick-named them chickens as they sat on fence posts.
This view would make a beautiful painting.
You can walk up there but we headed for White Coppice.
I think the Winters are harsh here.
This I think was a farm quarry. You just dug into the side of a hill to get the stone when you needed it.
Old bracken in russet colours.
Mountain stream channeled to the village.
A sheep is playing King of the Castle. Or should that be queen?
Click to read about the geology.
And here is White Coppice with the cricket pitch in front. We stopped here to have a wonderful sausage egg and bacon bun. Bungle and Fluff shared of course. Precious had a leg strain so she didn’t come.
So let’s walk back now.
We did a slightly different route and came across this house by a wood.
Then back to the reservoir.
The locals didn’t know quite what to make of the hounds but Bungle behaved well. Fluff is an old hand with sheep having spent years in Wales but with lambing season well upon us, they were safely on leads.
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