What's nearby? A bit of history

St Peter’s is just up the hill from the Nature Reserve. This beautiful little church was mainly built in the 13th century, including its tower in the Perpendicular style. The south porch is a bit newer - only 15th century.

St Peter's claim to fame is that it contains the tomb of local hero Sir John Codrington, who died in 1475. He was the standard-bearer to King Henry V at the battle of Agincourt in 1415.

However, he's not actually under the tomb. Like many elaborate tombs in other churches, this is a "show tomb". There are suggestions that there once was a gravestone in the chancel floor, but Sir John isn't there either. When the tower started to tilt dangerously, the Victorians dug out the floor and flooded it with concrete.

So where IS Sir John? Our best guess is that his remains are somewhere in the grassed hillock in the graveyard, which is where the Victorians dumped the spoil. So we've started to call the hillock "Sir John’s Tump". Even if he's not there, it's a good story.

Drought? What drought? (Here anyway)

We've heard a lot recently about a predicted drought in the South East. Here in the West the recent rain has left the ground really sodden - some of the woodland paths are rather muddy, and the pond is full. It's good for the ferns (see picture), though the last of the bluebells are just going over.

The meadows are full of flowers, and vegetation is growing fast everywhere - perhaps because the weather has also been mild. When the sun shines, a few butterflies are also coming out to enjoy the blooms (see picture).



The treetops are full of quarreling rooks. I sometimes wonder how they find so much to argue about. It's good to see them performing acrobatics above the Upper Meadow.

Summer here we come...

Workday 7 May 2006

A good workday today - lovely sunny weather. We've put eight dormouse nesting boxes in the wood. They're dark coloured rectangular tubes fastened to horizontal branches. This is part of the Dormouse Survey - we'll be checking the boxes later on to see what species are nesting in them.

Click this link for more on dormice.

Tree surgery

We've had to have some fairly serious tree surgery done recently - some of the tress were rotting and almost hollow at the base. Still, it gives a chance for all sorts of creatures to feed on the rotting wood. And as you can see, people are encouraging the bird life by leaving seeds on the freshly-cut tree stumps. By the way, we always plant far more trees than we have to cut down. 

Pond project

One of our recent projects was improving the pond in the top meadow.

This seasonal pond has had little of nature interest until now. To increase the ecodiversity of the area we brought in a specialist contractor to deepen the pond and plant along the margin.

Our thanks to South Gloucestershire Council who financed most of this work through their Environment Grant scheme.