Making space for nature: Orchids in the allotments

Jun21

The top part of our village allotments has been left as a small nature conservation area. About eight years ago I seeded it with a calcareous soil wildflower mix from Emorsgate Seeds, on behalf of our local conservation group. The area had been overgrown with rank grasses, which grew so strongly that other wildflowers were not able to get a proper foothold. In the seed mix was yellow rattle, a plant that parasitises the roots of neighbouring plants and so weakens them, and which is used as a natural method of controlling the rank grasses. It has been interesting watching the development of the meadow area. In the spring we get a fantastic show of cowslips, followed by black medic and yellow rattle and white and red clover and ox-eye daisies and all sorts of pretty flowers.

The conservation area of the allotments – a beautiful wildflower meadow, photographed this morning. If you click on the photo you can just make out a small clump of pyramidal orchids in the centre of the grassy area. The white drift behind them is a patch of ox-eye daisies (Leucanthemum vulgare).

Even before we sowed the seeds there were wild orchids growing on the allotments and in the conservation area: mainly pyramidal orchids, with a few bee orchids and a couple of common spotted ones. The orchids have ‘on’ years when they flower well, and ‘off’ years when they sulk and don’t bother to flower. This year is a ‘so-so’ year for the pyramidals, but there is no sign of the bee or the common spotted ones.

Bee orchid (Ophrys apifera) on the allotments, 16 June 2008.

The well-named Pyramidal orchid on the allotments, 16 June 2008.

The well-named Pyramidal orchid (Anacamptis pyramidalis) on the allotments, 16 June 2008. Black medic (Medicago lupulina) lurking in the background.

Common spotted orchid in our garden, 14 June 2006. The spots on the leaves, from which it gets its name, are visible.

Common spotted orchid (Dactylorhiza fuchsii) in our garden, 14 June 2006. The spots on the leaves, from which it gets its name, are visible.

We went for a walk there this morning and Ballou came with us. She adores Chap and howled pathetically when he wandered out of sight. While we were up there we met Charlie, our neighbour, with one of his cats.

Ballou on the lookout in the conservation area.

Despite its name, the common spotted orchid isn’t at all common in our conservation area. We have a lone specimen growing in our garden, bought from a favourite local nursery, Nadder Valley Nurseries (they don’t seem to have a website so I can’t link), many years ago.

Sturminster Newton Mill

Jun20

Last Sunday Chap and I headed south into Dorset. We wanted to visit the Fippenny Fair at Okeford Fitzpaine, but as that didn’t start until 2 we decided to take an amble en route. We stopped at Sturminster Newton Mill on the River Stour, with a view to doing a riverside walk, but to our delight found that the Mill was open, and not only that, it was one of its milling days. So in we went, paying our very reasonable entrance fee of £2.50 each.

Sturminster Newton Mill. Photo by Mike Searle.

The history of the Mill can be traced back for nearly 1,000 years, as it is almost certainly one of the four mentioned at Sturminster Newton in the Domesday Book of 1086. There may well have been a Saxon or even a Romano-British mill on the site before this. For most of its life the Mill was powered by two undershot water wheels working side by side; in 1904 these were replaced by a single water turbine, mounted horizontally under the water, which drove three pairs of stones. The Mill produced both flour and animal feed. It is owned by the Pitt-Rivers Estate, and was in constant use until 1970, when the last miller left and the Mill was boarded up and left abandoned for ten years. In the 1980s a Mill Trust was formed and several tenant millers worked there over the next decade. In 1994 it was decided to run the Mill as a visitor attraction, managed by the Sturminster Newton Museum and Mill Society, a volunteer-run organisation.

Sturminster Newton Mill on the River Stour. South wing (flour mill) to the left and north wing (originally a separate fulling mill) to the right.

We were taken on a guided tour of the entire building, and all the while the turbine was powering various machines and of course the millstones. The whole building gently shook, and the air thrummed to the regular pulse of the machinery. Canvas drive belts span, flour was pouring down shutes made of old-fashioned ticking and hessian, and chaff floated lightly about in the air, like drifting snowflakes. The homely smell of freshly-ground corn (grain such as wheat, rye, and barley to transatlantic readers) was all-pervasive. It is a magical place, and a real time warp—just as if the last hundred years had never happened. On the ground floor is the meal floor; above that is the stone floor where the grinding was done, and on the top floor is the bin loft where the grain was stored prior to grinding.

The mill is an L-shaped building. The south wing is the flour mill, and the present building was rebuilt c. 1650, presumably on the site of/incorporating parts of an earlier building. We were told that one of the trusses in the roof has recently and tentatively been dated by architectural historians to c. 1350! The north wing was ‘originally a completely separate fulling mill, built in 1611, then demolished in the late 18th century and rebuilt in brick on its original stone base to join with and extend the grain mill’, so the Mill’s website explains.

Machinery on the meal floor of the Mill: ground corn in the form of flour arriving from the floor above.

Machinery on the stone floor of the Mill. The pair of millstones are protected under the wooden vat or tun on the left.

Winnower in action on the stone floor.

Bag of grain arrived via the hoist through a well-worn trapdoor. Miller visible on the floor below.

Bag of grain (on its way to the bin loft) arrived on the stone floor via the hoist through a well-worn trapdoor. Miller visible on the meal floor below.

Millstone with tools to dress it when it had worn down too much.

Bins for grain in the bin loft at the top of the Mill. The roof truss that possibly dates from c. 1350 is visible up against the gable wall.

Miller's workshop in the other wing of the Mill.

Miller’s workshop in the other (north) wing of the Mill.

We were able to buy some of the flour that had been ground that day and I’m really looking forward to baking with it. (Update: you can see how I got on with a recipe for wholemeal bread made with this flour here).

Flour from the Mill.

The Mill is open until 29 September on Mondays, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays from 11 am—5 pm. Admission for adults is £2.50 and for children is £1.00.

According to the leaflet we picked up, the special milling weekends this year are on

12 and 13 July, 11 am—5 pm

9 and 10 August, 11 am—5 pm

13 and 14 September, 11 am—5 pm

and the same entrance fees are charged. It’s well worth a visit. The stairs are very steep, so only the ground floor is suitable for those with limited mobility. There is a picnic area at the back of the Mill where you can sit and watch the river.

A big ‘thank-you’ to the great volunteers who work there and who made our visit such a joy. It really is a very special place indeed.

I have looked to see if the Mill has been used as a location for films or television programmes, but can’t find anything. It certainly would make an exceptional location for a period production as it is so untouched by the 21st century (and barely by the 20th!).

Sturminster Newton Museum and Mill Society website link. Also used as a source: Sturminster Newton Mill, by Peter Loosmore and Roy Clarke, 2010 (2nd edition), published by Sturminster Newton Museum and Mill Society.

The Crazy Dorset World of Arthur Brown

Jun14

Do you ever have those moments when you start poking about on the internet to find out one thing, and end up learning something completely different, and new, and unexpected? Chap and I had one of those moments the other day. It all started with a car advert on the telly (Toyota Auris Hybrid, fact fans). The music playing was ‘A Horse With No Name‘, written by Dewey Bunnell of the band America, and released in the UK and parts of Europe in late 1971, and in January 1972 in the US. I loved that song so much when it was released, and still do. I wanted to know more about it, and a quick google told me that although the band members were American, the song was written and demoed while they were staying at Arthur Brown‘s recording studio at Puddletown in Dorset.

What? What? Puddletown? Puddletown? Double take, re-read to check, then scratch head in incredulity at the incongruity: a song that is about as all-American as can be, and conjuring up a harsh, arid, desert world, was written in bucolic, lush, green and very English Dorset. Puddletown is a village 8 km to the east of Dorchester. It’s grown a lot with housing developments in recent years, but in the early 1970s was a small, out-of-the-way place.

At this point Chap (who lived in Dorchester for much of his youth) got very excited. He’d heard an urban legend that Arthur Brown (he of ‘Fire‘ and flaming headgear fame) had lived there, but had never had confirmation. More internet snooping was in order.

Details came. Arthur Brown and his Crazy World lived in a farmhouse in or near Puddletown, and had a recording studio there called Jabberwocky Studios. Various musicians pitched up and stayed, and as people came and went bands were formed and evolved into others, including Puddletown Express, Brown’s backing band. By 1970 Brown had left, and Puddletown Express developed into another short-lived band called Rustic Hinge and the Provincial Swimmers (May—August 1970). John Peel visited Jabberwocky Studios, to talk to Rustic Hinge about signing them to his record label. In August 1970 a BBC camera crew arrived, to film the farmhouse for a documentary on Tess of the d’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy—apparently the farmhouse was Hardy’s model for one in which Tess stayed. The programme was produced by documentary maker Michael Croucher. He was amused by the musical anarchy going on around him, and filmed a performance of ‘Lychee’ by Rustic Hinge for the programme.

But no name given for the farmhouse. Where was it? we wondered. Cue more googling. And then we hit paydirt: a thread on a board about Rustic Hinge. With the very footage of ‘Lychee’ shot by the BBC, with the house in the background.

And someone in the thread identified the farmhouse as Ilsington Farmhouse, near Tincleton. Here was another ‘what?!’ moment—we know Ilsington Farm as both Chap and I worked quite a few years ago in one of the offices in the converted farm outbuildings there: Terrain Archaeology’s headquarters. Small world!

Ilsington Farmhouse.

Tincleton is a small village about 2.5 km south of Puddletown, and Ilsington Farmhouse is a Grade II listed building dating from the 17th century. Yet more internet truffling and we learned that you too can rent the seven-bedroom farmhouse from a mere £2,000—£2,950 a week, and have a go at recreating those crazy days of 40 years ago. We also learned that Ilsington Farm has had a swallow hole incident (also known as a sink hole) a few years back. I’m fascinated by sink holes, so all this was too much excitement for one evening!

Caveat: a lot of the details here about Arthur Brown and his fellow musicians might well be wrong, as the various sites I’ve looked at seem to have accounts with conflicting details, chronology, etc. Considering the amount of drugs that were no doubt consumed back in the late 60s and early 70s there, it’s not surprising—I wonder that anyone could remember anything at all from back then in much detail!

September 2015 update: Nick Churchill has commented with a link to an article he wrote for Dorset Life in June this year, with masses of detail about the house and the recording studio – apparently Led Zeppelin recorded there too! Do give it a look – it’s a great read with fascinating information.

Filming locations: Mompesson House

Jun11

Mompesson House. Photo by Tony Hisgett.

Mompesson House is a beautiful Queen Anne house, completed in 1701 and owned by the National Trust. It is located in the glorious Cathedral Close in Salisbury. It is the sort of house I can imagine living in: not too impossibly grand and high-ceilinged and museum-like, with cosy rooms full of interesting and lovely things, and with a pretty walled garden at the back. And of course, that view of the Cathedral to the front! It houses a fantastic collection of 18th century drinking glasses.

Salisbury Cathedral viewed from the front gate of Mompesson House, 11 June 2014. Peregrines nesting on the spire just out of shot!

In the summer of 1995 I was working on an archaeological project in the storerooms of Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum, which is also situated in the Cathedral Close. If the weather was good I would eat my lunch sitting out on the Close, enjoying the fabulous surroundings and watching the world go by. One lunchtime I noticed a gaggle of people and equipment outside Mompesson House, and so wandered over. Some sort of filming was in progress, but I didn’t know for what. Lots of people were sitting on the grass and watching the goings-on, so I plonked myself down among them. We were very close to the filming set-up, and I was pleasantly surprised that we were allowed to be so close and were not asked to move back. There were lights and reflectors and cameras and cables and endless crew busying around.

Mompesson House. I was sitting a little to the left of where this photo was taken from. Photo by Derek Voller.

Mompesson House. Photo by Derek Voller.

And then as I munched on my lunch, filming started, and Alan Rickman rides up to the house and dismounts. Alan Rickman. In breeches. My sandwich hung half way to my mouth, and my mouth hung open. Alan Rickman. Alan Bloody Rickman. In breeches. Right in front of me. There were other scenes filmed too, with a carriage, but all I could think of was Alan Rickman. In breeches. Right in front of me.

Needless to say, I took a rather longer than usual lunch break and didn’t concentrate too well on my work that afternoon.

I asked around and it turned out that I had witnessed some of the filming for the Ang Lee version of Sense and Sensibility, with Alan Rickman playing Colonel Brandon, and Mompesson House standing in for Mrs Jennings’ London townhouse.

I can’t find any online photos of Alan Rickman in this scene. In 1995 not many (if any?) mobile phones had cameras—in this day and age everybody would be snapping away like crazy. I must rewatch the film and get a screengrab.

Alan Rickman during filming of Sense and Sensibility (not at Mompesson House, from the looks of it).

Alan Rickman as Colonel Brandon in Sense and Sensibility (not at Mompesson House: this scene was filmed at Trafalgar House near Salisbury, standing in for Barton Park, Sir John Middleton’s estate).

Alan Rickman as Colonel Brandon in sense and Sensibility. Again, not photographed at Mompesson House.

Alan Rickman in Sense and Sensibility. Again, not photographed at Mompesson House: this scene was at the Dashwood’s cottage in Devon, actually a house on the Flete Estate in Devon.

Alan Rickman and emma Thompson in Sense and Sensibility. Mompesson House in the background. I didn't see this scene being filmed.

Alan Rickman and Emma Thompson as Elinor Dashwood in Sense and Sensibility. Mompesson House in the background. I didn’t see this scene being filmed. I was probably back in the storeroom, having a fit of the vapours.

I was in Salisbury today so snapped the photo above of the view of the Cathedral from the front of Mompesson House. I wandered over to see if I could see the peregrines—I asked a stonemason working on the east front and he said the nest was on the south face of the spire. I stood by the cloisters entrance and watched for ten minutes or so, but didn’t see anything. I could certainly hear one though, squawking away on the spire. So exciting!

Update 10 August 2014: I’ve just watched the film again and the scene is a blink and you’ll miss it one: it’s when Colonel Brandon is leaving Mrs Jennings’ townhouse to take the Dashwood girls back to Devon: he’s on horseback accompanying their carriage:

Colonel Brandon leaving Mrs Jennings' house with the Dashwoods. The scene I watched being filmed.

Colonel Brandon on horseback leaving Mrs Jennings’ house with the Dashwoods in the coach. The scene I watched being filmed outside Mompesson House.

A mess of pottage

Jun9

For Sunday lunch yesterday we had a roast chicken (most unusual for us to have a Sunday roast—that happens about twice a year), and in the evening I stripped the carcass and made a stock with the bones and skin and the onion that I had stuffed into the bird’s cavity.

Not a chicken: a house at the Weald and Downland Open Air Museum.

Today I was looking in the fridge, thinking about what kind of leftovers supper I could make, and suddenly I had a brainwave—pottage! A few years ago Chap and I visited the Weald and Downland Open Air Museum, and in the Tudor kitchen there we watched a lady cooking pottage on an open fire, using just leeks, carrots, pearl barley and stock. She gave us some to try, and it was scrummy—a pleasant surprise as it looked none too appetising. This morning I realised we had the makings of the pottage we had tried: some nice leeks and some rather sad-looking carrots in the vegetable drawer, a packet of pearl barley, the chicken stock and a small jugful of leftover gravy from yesterday’s chicken. Hurrah!

I had a quick google around for pointers, and came across this video recipe—filmed in the very same kitchen at the Museum.

The video recipe has onions, leeks, parsnips, spinach, oats and herbs, and no carrots or pearl barley, but I gather that a pottage was a thick vegetabley stew using up whatever grain or pulse was to hand and whatever fresh produce was in season: no refrigerators or imported fresh foodstuffs in those days. Anything goes seemed to be the rule of the day.

So I winged it. Here’s how I made it:

Slice two leeks and four carrots, and sweat in a dollop of butter in a big saucepan over a medium heat. Season with salt and freshly-ground black pepper to taste, then add 100g (3.5 oz) of pearl barley. Stir around, then add the stock (I had about a litre of stock, I think, and I also added about 0.25 litre of leftover gravy (made with the chicken juices from the roasting pan, a tiny bit of cornflour, and water).

Pottage ingredients (from top to bottom): fresh homemade chicken stock, leftover homemade gravy, carrots, leeks, pearl barley.

Sweating the leeks and carrots in butter, with salt and freshly-ground black pepper.

Bring to the boil, cover and simmer for about an hour to an hour and a quarter (75 minutes), until the pearl barley is soft and has absorbed a lot of the liquid. Serve with crusty bread.

Supper, medieval stylee.

This recipe could easily be made into a vegetarian one by substituting vegetable stock for the chicken stock (and missing out the chicken gravy). As all the ingredients are pretty bland, flavour-wise, it stands or falls according to the quality (tastiness) of your stock.

Weald and Downland Open Air Museum website link.

Making space for nature: peregrine falcons at Salisbury Cathedral

Jun9

Here’s a story that warmed the cockles of my heart: peregrine falcons have successfully nested for the first time in 61 years at Salisbury Cathedral, in a nest box placed half way up the spire. The breeding pair have produced three chicks, and even better: there’s a webcam on which you can watch their progress.

Peregrine falcon and chicks on Salisbury Cathedral spire, 2014.

The 800-year-old Salisbury Cathedral is truly stunning. Its spire is the tallest in the UK, standing at 123 metres (404 feet) high. In 1995 I was very lucky to work on an archaeological project in the storerooms of Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum, opposite the magnificent west front of the Cathedral. At the time the west front and spire were being restored and I would watch the tiny ant-like stonemasons way up on the scaffolding, and admire their skill and nerve. It’s wonderful to think that peregrines are now flying around that same spire. Lovely news (perhaps not so lovely for the pigeons, mind …)

Salisbury Cathedral, showing the spire and the West front. Photo by Hugh Chevallier, June 2013.

I can heartily endorse the wise words of Gary Price, the clerk of works at the Cathedral: “I feel privileged to have played a small part in securing the peregrines’ presence here at Salisbury Cathedral for many years to come. It’s reassuring to know that a few small steps by various people can make all the difference to the local wildlife.”

This is such exciting news, and next time I go shopping in Salisbury I’m going to sit in the Cathedral Close until I see a peregrine. 🙂

Salisbury Cathedral website link.

Orange!

Jun8

In an earlier post I mentioned that orange is my favourite colour. I love colour—the brighter the better, and for me, orange is the best of all. It’s sunshine and happiness in a colour. It’s hard to be grumpy when there’s orange around.

Orange in my garden (and a couple of others):

Meconopsis cambrica (orange Welsh poppy) in our garden. It’s a lot more orangey and less yellowy in real life than this photo suggests – a sort of pale tangerine colour.

Lathyrus aureus, This one's my baby - I grew it from seed.

Lathyrus aureus, a low-growing perennial member of the pea family. This one’s my special baby – I grew it from seed.

Buddleja globosa in our garden. This flowers earlier than the common buddleja (B. davidii) and it’s so unusual: lovely globby, bobbly flowers.

Buddleja globosa. This flowers earlier than the common buddleja (B. davidii) and it's so unusual: lovely globby flowers. And they just had to go in an orange jug!

And they just had to go in an orange jug!

Clivia miniata. I put these out for the summer but they have to come inside for the winter before the first frosts. They need to be in a shady spot as the sun can burn their leaves badly. The seed pods are so pretty too, and clivias are easy to grow from seed.

Crocosmia × crocosmiiflora ‘Star of the East’ with a few orange Tropaeolum majus (nasturtiums) in a garden I designed in Berkshire.

Erysimum (wallflowers) and lily-flowered tulips (possibly Tulipa ‘Ballerina’) at Lytes Cary in Somerset, a wonderful National Trust property.

And recently I realised I’d been buying an awful lot of orange and reddy-orange things for my shop on Etsy:

Baltic amber and 800 silver ring by Wilhelm Becker of Pforzheim, Germany. (NOW SOLD).

Baltic amber and sterling silver ring, by Niels Erik From of Denmark. (NOW SOLD).

Art Nouveau style Baltic amber and silver ring. (NOW SOLD).

Art Deco carnelian and silver lavalier necklace. (NOW SOLD).

Vintage carnelian agate big bead necklace. (NOW SOLD).

Vintage Art Deco carnelian glass lavalier necklace. (NOW SOLD).

Art Deco glass necklace, probably Czech glass. (NOW SOLD).

Victorian banded agate brooch. (NOW SOLD).

Vintage faux amber and 830 silver flower brooch, possibly Danish. (NOW SOLD).

So then I had to go on a blues and greens and purples and pinks buying spree—such hardship!

Making space for nature: swallows

Jun6

Recently Chap and I were at the Dorchester Curiosity Centre, a favourite spot for rootling about among antiques and bric a brac, looking for treasures. It’s on an old industrial estate in a series of interlinking hangar-like rooms. One of the areas has high sliding doors to the outside and is used for furniture storage rather than display—and what drew us in there was the twittering of swallows. As we were admiring them as they flew in and out through the open doors, the owner (?) of the centre came by and chatted with us about how they come every year and nest in the eaves and holes in the gable end of the wall, and how he had hung up some protective sheets overhead to keep the droppings from landing on the furniture (and punters). He mentioned that some customers had said he should shoo them away and prevent them from nesting. We were so glad he chose to ignore those people—swallows are such a delight and their nesting spots are increasingly under threat. And they will certainly draw us back there!

Swallows (image from Richard Crossley - The Crossley ID Guide Britain and Ireland)

Swallows (image from The Crossley ID Guide Britain and Ireland, by Richard Crossley).

Our village church has a Swallow Mess Committee (I don’t think they call themselves that …) as swallows nest every year in the porch. The members of the SMC duly clear up after them. I think they might even have a rota for oomska duty.

Swallow chicks in their nest (and oomska). Photo by User:Wsiegmund on Wikimedia.

Another church I know has an umbrella hanging upside-down below the nest in the porch to catch the mess. We are so grateful that people go to this kind of trouble for our feathered friends: an English summer wouldn’t be the same without them. Chap and I keep a nature diary and every year we note the date of various spring ‘firsts’—first brimstone, first bat, first clump of frogspawn in our pond, first hedgehog poo on the lawn—but the first swallow is the one that means the most.

One of my favourite mugs, by Emma Bridgwater (Photo off eBay)

One of my favourite mugs is a swallow one by Emma Bridgwater. I was going to link to it in her shop but it looks like the company doesn’t make that design any more. I shall have to be doubly careful of mine, in that case. And of our great bustard one: that’s a special one and I’ll squeeze a blog post out of it at some point …

Filming locations: Montacute House

May29

The news that the National Trust’s Montacute House and Barrington Court, both in Somerset, will be closed over the next month or so for the filming of a BBC adaptation of Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall has given me an idea for a series of posts here on my blog: local places that have been used as filming locations for movies and television programmes.

Montacute House, the east front.

Barrington Court.

Montacute House is a stunning Elizabethan house and estate near Yeovil in Somerset, not too far from us and always a favourite to visit. I remember going there a few years ago with Chap and a friend from Canada who was staying with us. We went in April, I think it was—the first day it was open for the season, after its winter closure. The stewards (all of whom seemed to be middle-aged ladies) were all of a tizzy: it turned out that The Libertine had only just finished filming there in the previous few days, and the highlight for the stewards, who were preparing the house for its opening alongside the filming, was seeing the film’s star Johnny Depp. And even better than that, said one, was seeing him wandering around in the nude. I think he made a lot of ladies there very happy!

While walking in the grounds on that visit we noticed a small sign next to the trunk of a large spreading tree. We went over to see what it said—the tree species, maybe?—and as it was so small we had to get right up to the sign to read it. And so, standing almost under the centre of the canopy, we were amused to read something along the lines of ‘Please do not stand under this tree as it may shed its branches suddenly’. Priceless!

Montacute House was also used in the 1995 film of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility, standing in for Cleveland House, the country estate of Mr and Mrs Palmer. (I was lucky enough to witness some of the filming for Sense and Sensibility at Mompesson House in Salisbury – but that’s for another blog post!)

I’m looking forward to Wolf Hall very much – I thought the books on which it is based (Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies) were terrific, and it has a cracking cast, including Mark Rylance, Damian Lewis, Joanne Whalley, David Bradley, Jessica Raine, Mark Gatiss, Claire Foy, Jonathan Pryce, Anton Lesser and Saskia Reeves, among others.

If you were planning a visit, Montacute House is closed until 11 June and Barrington Court from 18 June – 2 July. More details on the National Trust website pages: Montacute Estate; Barrington Court.

A World War I graffito on a beech tree

May28

In the woods near our village is a large beech tree with an interesting graffito cut into the bark of the trunk. (Click on all photos to enlarge).

The graffito.

Underneath a noose hanging from a gallows is a man wearing a spiked helmet, wearing a uniform with a belt and buttons down the front. He might have a moustache (possibly upturning) on his face, but this is less clear. By the figure is written ‘THE KAISER.’, and underneath is written ‘YOU ARE A BUGER.’ ‘Buger’ seems likely to be a mis-spelling of ‘bugger’.

Detail of the figure with his spiked helmet, belt and buttons.

We assume this refers to Kaiser Wilhelm II and was carved into the beech tree sometime during World War I (1914-1918), perhaps by someone who had lost a family member who was serving in the Armed Forces during the war. It could be that ‘The Kaiser’ was the nickname of a local character from our village or the surrounding area and this was carved by someone who was disgruntled with him. I don’t suppose we will ever know for certain, but it is interesting to speculate.

Kaiser Wilhelm II

Spot the similarity? I think with the eye of faith I can even see an upturning moustache on it ...

Spot the similarity? I think with the eye of faith I can even see a moustache on him …

I have contacted Chantal Summerfield, whose PhD at Bristol University is on the graffiti carved into trees by soldiers during World Wars I and II, a lot of it on Salisbury Plain Training Area, and she has expressed an interest in our example, so I hope we might get a chance to show it to her at some point.

We were first shown it by a friend about 20 years ago. We have been keeping an eye on it since then, stripping the encroaching ivy off it at every visit. It is on the very edge of the wood (managed woodland for timber) and so we hope it won’t get chopped down—or that even if it is marked for felling, it might be spared because of the graffito. It used to have holly bushes growing near it and these have recently been cleared, making access easier (and less painful!)

The tree and graffito a few years ago (2009).

The tree in 2014.

Whatever the story behind it, it is a wonderfully evocative voice from the past.

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