November 2014

As visitors will no doubt have noticed, our new Information Room has been erected, although not yet fitted out with information. It will have large A1 sized framed posters with pictures of Warley Place as it was in Ellen Willmott's time and also information about what you can see now. This will all be done well before the open weekends in spring next year, possibly 'trial' information sheets first to see how they look. The whole project has been carried out through a kind and generous donation.

 

The area round the sycamore by the inner gate has been sealed off from rabbits and cattle, and strimmed ready for the emerging crocuses. We will be looking very carefully at how these measures affect the growth of the flowers.

 

In my last news I said that the mapping had been taken over by Brian Dawson. Sorry Bob, Brian was an old friend of mine from the past. It's Bob Dawson who is doing this work.

 

I also reported the loss of my camera. Well it's been retrieved, so I can go on photographing volunteers at work. It was used to take some of the pictures you will see in the information room, and will now take many more.

 

 Although the wet weather makes work difficult at times, we have been continuing to pull up bamboo, which sprouts all over the place, and Japanese Knotweed which appears in very few places now. We have also been cutting and splitting logs for sale, and those of us transporting them to be stored have been very thankful for the cart's change to mechanised rather than human propulsion. Even so, on soft ground a lot of pushing and grunting takes one back to those years ago when that's all we had.

 

We had some very sad news recently. Paul Carter, the owner of Warley Place, has passed away. He was a great friend to all of us and was ready to help whenever we needed it. He used to man the gate at open weekends and you would never know the place belonged to him. We will miss him very much indeed.