Archive for April 2008
Quantock AONB Service Report
April 2008The AONB Service is a dedicated team of Rangers and Officers who work to help ensure that the Quantock Hills remain a natural haven for wildlife and visitors. The team also work with local communities on projects that boost environmental, economic and social well-being in the area.Â
Education Project Launch
A fantastic new website for children www.quantockeducation.info was launched in November 2007, alongside seven teaching packs, helping children learn more about their local landscape. These two new resources provide local schools with the confidence and ability to use the special beauty of this protected landscape as a learning tool, and help children get outdoors and make the connection between the classroom and their local surroundings.
The teachers packs cover 7 specific areas in the Quantock Hills, and provide teachers with lesson plans, activities and worksheets that can be used across a variety of subjects from Science to Geography. The packs were developed by teachers in the local area, alongside the Quantock Hills AONB Service, and are aimed at children aged between 7 and 11 (Key Stage 2).
Mixed Blessings Book
A new book by photographer Gary Penny has just been published.  ‘Mixed Blessings’ uses black and white, and colour photographs alongside transcripts and extracts from interviews with farmers to record the lives of our farming community here in the Quantocks. The book highlights the precious nature of small scale rural industry, and celebrates the vital role it has in sustaining vibrant and working rural communities
This is the culmination of a project funded through the Quantock Hills AONB Service Sustainable Development Fund. It forms part of the many hundreds of pictures that he has made for the Quantock Hills AONB rural archive. Mixed Blessings is available at the Quantock Hills office in Nether Stowey and at two local bookshops: Brendon Books, Bath Place in Taunton and Bridgwater Bookshop, 35 High Street in Bridgwater. It costs £15 (plus £4.50 postage& packaging if ordered from the Quantock Office).
Quantock Arts Project
In the footsteps of the Romantic poets.
Two new collaborative arts projects are currently underway, with the aim of making connections between people, their environment and the heritage of this unique area. This exciting project is possible thanks to funding from the Arts Council England. The two projects began in September and will culminate in a showcase event in August 2008.
Somerset based ‘4 Reel Films’ will create a piece of artistic film that will draw its inspiration from the sumptuous verse of the Romantic Poets and the vivid drama of the Quantocks landscape.
Artists Antony Lyons and Ralph Hoyte will collaborate on a project called ‘Quantock Dreaming – Secret Mappings and Mapping Secrets in the Quantock Hills’. They will produce a body of work based on map and mapping techniques that will include text, poetry and sound recordings.
Your Postcard Maps
As part of this project Lyons and Hoyte are asking the public to draw their own secret and treasured places in the Quantocks on specially designed postcards, which will then be incorporated into their project. Postcards can be obtained from the Nether Stowey office, as well as local libraries and art galleries.
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Roadside Trees:the Landowners’ Dilemma by Hugh Warmington
April 2008It is huge, it is old, it is beautiful and it is full of lovely creepy crawlies. The problem is that it is a hazard. One windy Winter night, or one scorching hot Summer’s day, its life will end in a few seconds of crashing noise, and someone might be injured.
What does the prudent landowner do?  He has a tree hazard survey done by someone qualified. He looks at it critcally. He instructs a contractor to fell all trees identified as being dangerous. And then he can sleep easily at night. The danger, and therefore the liability, have been removed.
It’s not quite that easy. Although no felling licence (from the Forestry Commission) is required to fell a dangerous tree, a licence may well be required under The Habitats Directive if there is a danger of disturbing a European Protected Species, in this case one of our seventeen species of bat. But as human health and safety is one of very few valid reasons, a licence should be forthcoming.
What is the dilemma? It is that, whilst the landowner owes a duty of care to motorists and walkers on footpaths and riders on bridleways, he is also concerned about the landscape. And felling lots of large and very old trees in full public view is not top of his list of good things to do. The courts have decreed that without commissioning a tree survey a landowner can hardly claim to be prudent. And if that landowner then ignores the survey’s conclusions he will definitely be culpable.
What is the risk? Very small. Every accident involving fallen trees is reported because it is so unusual.  But the consequences in terms of loss of life and financial damages can be huge. There is another small irony in this story. The trees most at risk are those standing alone, or in an avenue. They have no protection from strong winds. And these are the trees that would be most missed because they are individuals. Trees within, or even at the edge of woodland, have the protection of their neighbours, and if they were to be lost there is another tree standing nearby.
There is a further disincentive to fell dangerous trees. It is expensive. By definition they are well past their prime in terms of timber value, and perching next to a road adds difficulty and expense.  Let me just say that it makes very expensive firewood.  But the butt is too big for firewood, and too rotten for timber, so we can leave it to quietly decay and continue to provide a living for all those nice creepy crawlies. Oh, and we will continue to plant trees to replace those we might lose as well as those already lost.
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Book Review - A Special Place?
April 2008Many of us think that the Quantocks are a special place and this is the title for the first chapter of a book entitled “The Historic Landscape of the Quantock Hills” published by English Heritage. The author is Hazel Riley, who has already done a similar service for Exmoor, and there are forewords by Lady Gass and Chris Edwards of the Quantock AONB Service.
This is a fascinating book for anyone and especially for those who know and love the Quantocks. It examines the changing face of the Quantock landscape from earliest times to the 20th century but particularly explores the impact that man and his activities have had on the hills. Hazel is well versed in the archaeology of the area and takes us through the evidence of early hunter-gatherers from before the last ice-age, through the Neolithic and Bronze Age settlements and standing stones, and the barrows and earthworks that litter the hilltops, to historic times. The Middle Ages were a period of deer parks and the origins of most of the settlements that we know today with the ancient track-ways and early buildings. In more recent times she writes of the enclosure movement, industrial archaeology and big estates of the last two hundred years.
It is a fascinating read and a mine of information. If you have been intrigued by the Trendle Ring or Dowsborough Camp, by the barrows on Wills Neck or the statue of Jupiter at Terhill, you can learn all about them in this book, although I am sorry that Hazel does not explain the derivation of Wills Neck.
However well you think you know the Quantocks you will still find new information about features that you may often have passed but not recognised for what they are. The illustrations are superb with many aerial views that show the hills in a new light, maps, old photographs and drawings.                  Â
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Chairman’s Report
April 2008At our last AGM in September 2007, Commander Ingram, Mrs. A. Mead and Mrs. J. Treharne stood down from the Committee. At the same meeting Mr. D. Worthy resigned as our editor. This left us with too little time to find a replacement editor for the production of the Autumn newsletter.
However, since the AGM, three new members have been co-opted on to the Committee. Two of these, Mr Mal Treharne and Mr Alan Hughes, together with Mrs. Jane Warmington have volunteered to produce the revamped newsletter, with Mr. Alan Corkett as Editor. I hope you enjoy it! The third new member on our Committee is Mrs. Wendy Hofmaier.
Apart from our yearly donation to the restoration projects of three churches (St. Pancras, West Bagborough; All Saints, Aisholt; St. Georges, Bicknoller), we have made donations towards the following projects:Â Improvement of the vegetation on Aisholt Common; Restoration of beech hedge 7 banking, Quantock Common; New wooden gate at Triscombe Stone car park; Quantock link project - a new public right of way at Plainsfield which will ensure a safe route for horse riders, cyclists and walkers, because they will not have to cross a busy road; Reinstatement of Bicknoller and Halsway posts; Volunteer Ranger toolkits; New Interpretation panels at Waterpitts Farm.Â
 The talk on Butterflies, held at Bishops Lydeard village hall, raised £80 for the Conquest Centre.           Â
Because the proposed deer cull this autumn caused such anxiety among the public, we have included a shortened version of Dr. Langbein’s letter on the subject in this newsletter and added the AONB deer management leaflet. I hope you’ll find both helpful.Â
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Quantock Wells and Springs by Audrey Mead
April 2008Friends of Quantock have a special interest in St Agnes Well at Cothelstone. They had it restored in 1987 - the European Year of the Environment - and endeavour to make periodic onslaughts on the encroaching vegetation. A beautiful old well house, it lies N E of the Manor, reached by a stile from the road and then up through a wet patch of ground. Reputedly the water is good for sore eyes and sprains and it has also long been associated with unmarried girls seeking husbands. St Agnes is commemorated on 21 January and they visited on the eve of that day whispering their desires, and probably dropping in a pin or small coin, hoping to dream of future lovers. In Ruth Tongue’s ‘Somerset Folklore’ she tells the tale of an older maidservant who longed for a man and children to love. But ‘not liking to worry St Agnes over one so on in years’, she went ‘in the dimmit’ to Seven Wells Combe, though the well there was hard to find. Within a year she was happily wed to a dear old fellow from Aisholt way. A century ago Gresswell described the combe: ‘‘The slopes are closely covered with slender trunks deep in leaf mould… Some distance up there is a little sacred well, stone covered and mossy but whether there were originally 7, I do not know. It does seem to be an extremely ancient name for the valley.
Easier to find is St David’s Well, a path to it is signed from Great Wood car park. It lies below Quantock Farm and was restored by Quantock School some years ago. Near the bottom of the path northwards through the woods from Deadwoman’s Ditch towards Lady Combe is Lady’s Fountain in Bincombe is another well, its name seems lost, struggling to exist. Certainly there are plenty of springs on the hills, invaluable for livestock and from one near Buncombe a Taunton doctor used the water to make up prescriptions. But why did some have a special significance lasting over the years so that a small structure was built over to protect them? Look for a W on a big scale 0S map to find others now lost or forgotten. It would be lovely to restore them.
Those wells in Quantock villages are better documented and are generally holy wells such as St Peter’s at Over Stowey and St John’s at Holford. St Andrew’s, Stogursey, reached by a lane from near the old cross, is worth a visit, fed by a copious supply of water. It has been used for drinking and laundry rather than curative powers, but the name Blindwell for a house at Nether Stowey tells of its supposed properties, also associated with one near Quantock Barn, Enmore. Another, St Sativola’s, near Wick Barrow and Hinckley Point, was good for both eye and skin problems.
    Somewhat different is the Devil’s Whispering Veil, not far from Bishops Lydeard church, where curses can be whispered. Was that once a holy well acquired by Satan? And there used to be a well in Pardlestone Lane, Kilve, where apparently a covey of witches met and from which locals feared to let stock drink.
Many of the old houses in the area had their own water supply giving beautifully cold water to drink and also useful to store perishables in their depths before the days of fridges. But although they rarely did the owners any harm a lot would not pass to-day’s tests for drinking, often they were not far from the outside privy!
Audrey Mead.
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Deer Management on the Quantocks
April 2008[The following is an edited version of a letter from Dr Jochen Langbein, Secretary of the Quantock Deer Management and Conservation Group, which appeared in the West Somerset Free Press. It does not necessarily represent the views of Friends of Quantock].
The Quantock Deer Management and Conservation Group have called for more female deer to be culled in and around the Quantock Hills. I would like to explain the reasons that have led the very broad array of individuals and conservation organisations, which make up the QDM&CG, to ask local landowners to move towards culling in a more collaborative, selective and sustainable manner.
A visual spring (pre-calving) count of red deer on the Quantocks has been organised annually with the help of 50 volunteers for the past 17 years. Deer are difficult to count accurately, but this standardised count enables at least minimum numbers to be confirmed and trends to be monitored. The average of counts obtained during the five years from 1993-1997 was 555, rose to 745 from 1998-2002 and has averaged 830. The count records merely the annual minima before at least 350 calves are born during the summer, taking the total to somewhere near 1100.
Culling of deer on the Quantocks is nothing new, 200 to 250 deer will have been culled in most recent years but this has clearly not prevented the increase in deer numbers and the proportion of adult females culled needs to be greater.
 For appropriately qualified and experienced stalkers, red deer are not an especially difficult species to cull. The more complicated task lies in getting the many individual landowners to work towards maintaining a healthy and sustainable herd as a valued part of our wildlife and asset to local tourism, but without unacceptable levels of damage to farm and timber crops or detrimental impact on semi-natural habitats.
 The QDM&CG is fully committed to the long-term conservation of a substantial population of red deer on the Quantocks. However, its members (which include Quantock landholders, as well as other interested bodies) have jointly reached the conclusion that concerns about damage to farmland, forestry, and woodland biodiversity make the current size of deer populations unsustainable in the longer term particularly relative to the conservation of the ancient semi-natural oak woods on the Quantock, which are a ‘Special Area of Conservation’ of international importance. The group has therefore asked local landholders to liaise in a gradual reduction of the population over the coming five years, and then retain a population nearer 500 head. To accomplish this, an extra 50 to 100 mature females will need to be culled annually to initiate a more significant reduction in the breeding herd.
Whilst the optimum deer population level for the Quantocks remains debatable and will always require compromises between landholders and other interest groups, in the absence of any natural predators, direct management intervention does become inevitable at some point.
Therefore as a biologist and wildlife enthusiast I have no problem in accepting the need for culling as part of deer management. The more important issue is that deer culls should be undertaken in a humane, professional and highly selective manner and that a significant and healthy population is retained which remains valued as an asset rather than perceived as a pest by landholders.
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