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| | | From Shetland to the Scilly Isles, Open Country travels the UK in search of the stories, the people and the wildlife that make our countryside such a vibrant place. Each week we visit a new area to hear how local people are growing the crops, protecting the environment, maintaining the traditions and cooking the food that makes their corner of rural Britain unique.
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Helen Mark is out and about in Berkshire, and she begins her trip at Greenham Common, synonymous with peace demonstrations. Here she meets Ed Cooper, Director the Greenham Common Trust which was set up in 1997 to buy the former air base. The Trust has been occupied with restoring the heathland habitat and curiously it began by building a business park on the site which plays a critical part in funding the project. The barracks have now been demolished and the runways have been recycled: the concrete used in schemes such as building a local school, and grassed over. The influence of concrete from the runways has given the common an unusual combination of alkaline and acid habitats giving rise to a unique mix of flora. The natural gravels have been cleaned, the heather is being brought back - and the famous Cruise missile silos now are home to barn owls.
Greenham Common Trust
Helen next pays a call on Master Saddler Frances Kelly at her workshop in Twyford. Frances runs a small business making made-to-measure bridlework and saddlery. She is also saddler for the Queen and works two days a week at Buckingham Palace. She is frantically busy getting ready for the Jubilee celebrations, making sure the State harness, beautiful and highly ornate leatherwork, is in tip-top condition. She's famed for her delicate hand-stitching, and thinks that antique tools are often better than new ones.
Society of Master Saddlers
From all the Queen's horses to all the Queen's trees: Helen visits Caesar's Camp, near Bracknell (actually a misnomer, since it's an Iron Age hillfort built between 2500-2700 years ago) now in the middle of a forest owned by the Crown Estates. Helen Tranter from Bracknell Forest Council and chief forester Derek Stickler explain that the Camp is a remarkable piece of engineering, constructed entirely by hand using basic tools, with ramparts surrounded by a ditch. There have been no major excavations of the hillfort, but English Heritage did a geophysical survey and small scale sample excavations in 1995 which sadly revealed very little. The remnants of the hillfort, the banks and ditches, have suffered from erosion by natural and human actions. Until recently, the interior of the hillfort was covered by a conifer plantation and the bank and ditch by deciduous trees. Recently the site has been returned to heathland and grass sown on the banks, a better protective barrier to erosion than other vegetation.
Bracknell Forest
There's a peaceful interlude for Helen as she listens to Vespers being sung by the monks of Douai Abbey, the home of a community of Benedictine monks, set in the countryside between Newbury and Reading. The community is a curious mix of old and new: the Abbey Church is a hybrid building, half of which is traditional architecture and half very modern. Father Oliver Holt says this is a good description of the order today. They wear traditional habits and follow the Rule of St Benedict, but also have a website and run courses on spirituality and the workplace and feel that St Benedict has much to offer to 21st century people.
Douai Abbey
Helen's final port of call is Wildmoor Heath Nature Reserve where the local Wildlife Trust is busy preparing the land for some new residents: sand lizards, which are Britain's most endangered species of lizard. Richard Elston, the Reserves Manager explains that in order to breed, sand lizards need mature heathland with sunny areas of sand and dry soil. The continued destruction of this type of habitat has caused their extinction in a wide range of counties, including Berkshire. They're especially vulnerable to fires, which not only kill them directly but also destroy their habitat. In order to reduce this significant danger they are creating bare sandy tracks to work as fire breaks on the reserve. The first group of juvenile lizards are being released in August.
Wildlife Trust
This week's competition: Whilst we were at Douai Abbey, Father Oliver asked when was St Benedict born? The prize is two tickets to a concert at the Abbey.
Submit your entry by emailing [email protected]
Last week's winner is Tom Patton of Southsea in Hampshire who correctly said that you would spot the torque from the Broighter horde on the back of a Northern Irish pound coin.
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Open Country looks back 2003
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