Festival first – a new initiative

BVCT trustee Chris has been negotiating the Trust’s involvement with the Community Rail Partnership (CRP) to find ways to encourage the use of railways as a sustainable way to explore our Valley.

Rail to trail initiative

We are very lucky to have such wonderful countryside on our doorstep but have you considered exploring further along the 23 miles of wildlife corridor by train?

This is the principle behind our new and exciting Rail to Trail project – to show just how accessible the Blackwater Valley is by train and how easy it is for people to explore by combining the Blackwater path and the rail network.

What better way to get to know the Valley – all the health benefits but no car and no stress.

The Festival gave us a great opportunity to test out the idea – as part of a partnership project with CRP, we ran 3 Rail to Trail walks. The walk reports are below, from our leaders Colin and Chris.

We hope to share more news soon about our partnership with CRP and our new Rail to Trail signage project.

“We enjoyed joining the walk today, the weather held apart from a brief shower”

“A fantastic walk – we can’t wait for the next time”

“I enjoyed the walk at Wildmoor Heath from Sandhurst station and met a lovely group of people”

Rail to Trail: walk North Camp to Crowthorne, return by train

Waterproof boots were advisable!

This was a super valley walk of just under 9.5 miles between the 2 stations. It was led by David Daniels of CRP and Colin Wilson from BVCT, and the route ran through some of the most striking scenery on the Blackwater Valley path.

Despite the enthusiasm of our newsletter editor, who, when bathed in sunshine before the Festival, predicted the same for the Festival, the weather deteriorated quite severely such that only a small party of walkers was bold enough to join us.

As it turned out, the weather was not so bad! Lunch was had in the dry at Sandhurst and only a few showers blotted the day.

For the two previous nights torrential rain had affected our route through Hawley Meadows where a solid multi user path is proposed to help in future but as you can see, wearing waterproof boots was definitely advisable!

The walk ended in good time, the train ride back to North Camp was exactly on time and on this occasion, free to our walkers due to CRP funding.

We all made some new friends, learnt new things, enjoyed good company and added to our fitness, exactly what walking is about!

Our thanks go to David Daniels of CRP for joining us.

Rail to Trail: a nature trail around Sandhurst

Fly Agaric mushrooms

We set off from Sandhurst station, a brave small group having spotted that the rain would stop just as we started!

Passing through some very pleasant suburban streets we joined Wildmoor Heath for a circular route enjoying the heath and some good views from a carefully placed but tucked away seat overlooking the Valley.

Autumn colours were beginning to show and Trudi from Thames Basin Heaths Partnership gave us a short explanation about the valuable nature we could find there.

We failed to see any dartford warblers but we did find a rather unfortunate common lizard with a damaged tail and some nice fly agaric mushrooms. Chiffchaffs and nuthatches were heard as well as some of the expected tit flocks in the birch trees.

The walk route returned by the hidden gem of Snaprails Park before continuing south across Sandhurst Memorial Park to the River then followed the Blackwater Valley path back to the station.

This was a super, varied walk with lots to interest us. Our thanks again go to David Daniels of CRP and Trudi from TBH Partnership for joining us on such an unpromising day!

Rail to Trail: a circular walk from Ash

Chris hopped onto the 13.25 from Blackwater, 15 minutes and three stations later he arrived at Ash and joined up with seven fellow travellers wanting to see more of what the Valley had to offer.

This walk was led by David Daniels from CRP, ably assisted by our own guide and Valley expert Steve Bailey (Manager of the Blackwater Valley Countryside Partnership).

The walk took us from Ash Station to Ash Green Meadows, onto Tongham Woods via the Old Railway Path. We then picked up the Blackwater River footpath and along the Basingstoke Canal returning back to the station.

A fantastic walk of around 4.5 miles and it took us 2 hours 30 mins.

Time to talk – three aspects of our Valley

During the Festival, we ran a varied programme of free talks, which were all well attended.

Our support team

Managing meadows for wildlife

This walk and talk at Shepherd Meadows was a rare chance to get a look at some of the issues involved in managing the land along the river and a little bit of rain didn’t deter the small group of intrepid conservation enthusiasts who attended.

Shepherd Meadows is a 34-hectare site on the Berkshire and Hampshire border situated along the River Blackwater. It’s an SSSI (Site of Special Scientific Interest) because of its unimproved grassland and ancient woodland interest, and is managed through a combination of cattle grazing and cutting hay.

The walk included a discussion about managing grassland for its wildlife interest in general, as well as the different methods employed at Shepherd Meadows. It also explored issues specific to the site such as changes in the study of water, and the challenges of conservation management of valuable wildlife sites where there is a lot of of public access.

Many thanks to Rob (Biodiversity Officer) and Alex (Site Ranger) from Bracknell Forest Borough Council for a most interesting and informative session.

Evening talk at Rowhill Field Centre

The revival of the Blackwater Valley: 40 years and counting

The Trust’s Vice-chair and long term Valley resident, Colin Wilson gave a varied talk including the history of the Valley, a world boxing championship, highway robbery, gravel digging, road building, river diversion and habitats and wildlife!

We finished on climate change, invasive species and the work of the Blackwater Valley Countryside Trust.

This talk was very well attended and the refreshments were much appreciated by all.

Many thanks to our friends at the Rowhill Nature Reserve Society who hosted this event.

Our intrepid walkers

BVCT past, present and Festival

This walk started and ended at the Darby Green Centre and took in the scenic delights of Swan Lake.

One of many former gravel pits in the area, Swan Lake Park is now a picturesque walk through a wildflower meadow and around a fishing lake. This area is managed by the Blackwater Valley Countryside Partnership.

The walk lasted an hour and was just under three miles long, along well-worn paths.

10 intrepid walkers from the Walking Club braved the weather and joined us. They all enjoyed the walk despite a period of heavy rain.

Refreshments were served afterwards in the Darby Green Centre, followed by a short talk by Mike Swaddling, former Chair of the Trust entitled “BVCT – Past, Present and Festival”.

Many thanks to our friends at the Walking Club for taking care of us.

Monthly walk in September 2019

This Festival week walk was in bright sunshine starting at Southwood Woodlands, passing many buildings of interesting history including the old wind tunnel, the Basingstoke Canal and returned via some strange concrete army structures with unexplained purpose.

“Thoroughly enjoyable and lead by Paul Sanders in his popular, interesting style”

“Fabulous walk, thank you Paul for leading and those lovely people who supplied tea and cake halfway round – a really pleasant surprise”

Paul’s walk report

Monthly walk: September 2019

For the second time in two months I had set everyone the challenge of finding a recently created car park in a new SANG (Suitable Alternative Natural Greenspace) area. This time we were meeting at the Kennels Lane entrance to the new Southwood Country park. This 30 hectare area of acid grassland with 2.4km of new paths has been created on the old golf course site which will now allow Farnborough town centre developments to proceed.

Pleasingly the car park started to fill up with a good crowd of walkers as 10:00 approached and we set off following the newly mown paths through the now long grass of the former tees and bunkers and fairways and over streams feeding into the Cove Brook. We noted the wildflowers now re-colonising the site.

We crossed Ively road with the help of some very patient motorists and continued past the rather sad looking former club house awaiting development into a cafe or information centre. We crossed the road to enter the airfield site. This is the fourth time I have led this walk, albeit slightly different every time, but each time we see more of the old historically interesting buildings have been demolished and new bland grey ones take their place. This year it was noted that the old control tower was no longer there.

Balloon sheds

We passed under the recreated outline structure of the balloon sheds. The scale of this is impressive but the originals housed balloons such as the 122ft long Nulli Secundus, or more formally British Army Dirigible No 1. First flown on 10 September 1907, it was Britain’s first powered military aircraft and designed by Colonel James Templer who originally brought the balloon factory to this site and whose name is remembered by the name of the road we had been using since Meadow Gate roundabout. Its engine later being used to power Cody’s British Army Aeroplane No. 1. We briefly discussed this plane and the Cody tree as we passed by one of Farnborough’s most famous landmarks, the Grade II listed Black Shed hangers.

The sun was shining and we had good views across the airfield. I didn’t let on that our refreshments waited for us at exactly the far end of the main runway. It looked so far away.

Exiting the airfield at the Queens gate we discussed the history of the old days of pilot training as remembered by ETPS road and the old hostel and its most famous resident Laurence of Arabia before his adventures began.

Army structure

As we walked down Shoe Lane we stopped to view the large grave of five famous army horses just on the edge of the army golf course and then carried on down the quiet road to the Basingstoke Canal. We walked a couple of miles along the towpath before climbing up some steps recently installed by the Blackwater Valley volunteers to meet up with Angus and Marilyn who were dispensing teas and cakes from their “yellow wheelbarrow cafe”.

We stood on the mound, or sat on the benches, enjoying our drinks as several aircraft gave us a close look at their departures. We had covered 5.3 miles out of our 9.3 mile route.

Continuing along the towpath we now got some shade from the very welcome, but hot sun as we turned off to follow the Gelvert stream as it heads north through Pondtail into Fleet Pond. Turning to the east we could see the developments on the old Pyestock site with just one of the old buildings still standing. We crossed into the next wooded area which is slated to be the SANG for Hartland Park. We stopped to look at the curious bullet riddled concrete structures in the wood then crossed Kennels Lane to walk across the football pitches before entering Southwood Woodland and returning to the car park.

I hope everyone enjoyed the walk and found something interesting or new and thank you for keeping me company. Hope to see you in October!

A new contemplation garden

Wild flowers for Watchmoor Park

Creating a wild flower meadow

We’ve turned grassland into wild flower meadows

How we've made a difference

As part of our Natural Surrey Heath project, we approached Watchmoor Business Park about turning some of their grassland into wild flower meadows.

They sprang into action and 1000 sq metres of their lawns was seeded with a mix of bee and insect friendly plants.

The result

A beautiful summer display of flowers, that we're really pleased with.

You can see it from the A331 near Sainsbury's (but please keep your eyes on the road!)

We’re very grateful

Our thanks go to estate manager Rachel Hope for her support in this.

A beautiful summer display

Transforming the church entrance

Butterfly and bug hunt

This was a fascinating family walk at Moor Green Lakes with Paul Richards.

Butterfly and bug hunt

We were looking for butterflies and bugs but recent wet weather seemed to have slowed down the emergence of many butterflies.

Nevertheless we found a migrant painted lady, marbled white and speckled wood (pictured), red admiral, brimstones, common blues, meadow browns and ringlets. Also an interesting day flying moth called burnet companion.

We also found several dragonflies and damselflies including black-tailed skimmer (female pictured), large red, broad-bodied chaser and hundreds of common blue damselflies. Banded demoiselles were also found.

Not to be outdone, flowers were spectacular including meadow cranes-bill, horseshoe vetch, agrimony, lesser stitchwort and St John’s wort.

Our sincere thanks go to Paul for his expertise and impressive skills with his butterfly net.

Small mammal trapping

Ready to be examined

On a warm Saturday morning, approximately 20 people including 3 enthusiastic children, joined us on a small mammal event at Moor Green Lakes Nature Reserve.

Trustee Bernard had previously set 45 humane Longworth traps the night before. Bernard explained to us how the traps work and showed us how he put nesting material and food and apple in the traps so that the animals had something to eat and some moisture and a comfortable place to sleep whilst caught in the traps.

We were disappointed that the first few traps did not have any animals in them, but our patience was soon rewarded when we were delighted to find a number of small mammals in other traps.

We carefully examined them to find a nice mixture of 13 adult and juvenile male and female field and brown mice and one bank vole.

The mammals were put temporarily into plastic bags so that they could be examined. All were healthy.

The children were particularly taken with the big eyes and ears of the mice, who were all very lively especially when they were released and jumped eagerly across the grass like small kangaroos. One of them decided he would rather explore Bernard and ran all over his clothes, much to the amusement of the onlookers.

The children loved the big eyes and ears

The bank vole had other ideas, and attempted to burrow into Bernard's hand and gave him a rather nasty nip before being carefully released.

We also observed a number of lovely native wildflowers and birds - Bernard told us what they all were.

Everyone seemed to really like the event and went off happy to enjoy the rest of a nice sunny bank holiday weekend.

BVCT promotes outdoor learning

The Guillemont School outdoor classroom was officially opened by the Mayor of Rushmoor Borough Council.

Guillemont School outdoor classroom

We worked with Guillemont School to enhance their woodland area, so that it can be used for education but remain a valuable habitat for wildlife. As well as specialist knowledge, we also provided a grant which enabled the project to go ahead.

The tireless school governor, Georgina Compton, managed to get path making gravel donated by Grundon and this was laid by workers from Bellway Homes, who also provided base material for the decking.

The woodland now has a decking area with storage box seating, which will be used by the whole school for outdoor learning sessions. It will also be available for the local community.

We will continue to increase the wildlife value of the site with woodland flowers and hedging, while providing various nesting opportunities within the school grounds.

The picture is, left to right, the Chairman of the school governors, the Mayor, Bernard Baverstock (BVCT Trustee) and the Head Master.

Big Valley Ramble 2019

150 walkers enjoyed themselves along a route that delivered all the scenic delights our publicity had promised.

Having seen the perfect walking weather come and go the weekend before at Easter, we were biting our nails when Storm Hannah and her high winds approached on the Saturday! But she relented, and the conditions for our biggest walk of the year were at least dry and still, if a tad on the chilly side.

A really good day was had by all, with excellent refreshments stops and a nice mix of country lanes, paths and byways. We walked through fields, woodland, villages and hamlets using some of our own Blackwater Valley path to enjoy the riverside.

Organisationally everything passed off smoothly, and our thanks go to all those who helped to make it such a success:

our team of volunteers who worked tirelessly before and during the event
our corporate partners Kebur for their sponsorship of the event
Royal British Legion for use of their car park and for opening early to provide facilities early on the Sunday morning
Farley Estates for granting access through riverside areas normally closed to the public
Balfour Beatty for ensuring our route was clear

And a final thank you to everyone who attended!