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Croft Parkland is noted for its trees, perhaps the most notable are the rows of Spanish Sweet Chestnut Trees, with their twisted trunks and the barks with their deep fissures. However if you are a lover of tress you don’t need to search for long to find other trees of…
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The Fishpool Valley renovation project began in 2017 with an immense amount of planning and involvement with a wide range of agencies. Our part as volunteer rangers has been to support wherever we can, to help keep within budget. One aspect of this involvement has been to prepare some of…
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Whilst clearing away some of the regeneration of Silver Fir on the high bank overlooking the Fishpool Valley I wandered into an area of the Parkland I hadn’t been to before. I saw a tree that look quite unusual and on inspection found myself looking at a tree that had…
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Buried beneath the foliage of the Fishpool Valley lies a forgotten history, a landscape that has been both playground and workshop for people of an era long since past. Nature has won back the landscape; as perhaps it always will, where man has lost interest or moved on to exploit…
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Update on the Crayfish. In Sweden a crayfish party is a traditional summertime eating and drinking celebration. In the 1960’s stocks of crayfish throughout Europe were affected by a crayfish plague. In the 1970’s signal crayfish were introduced from North America to the UK as a commercial initiative for export…
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One of the earliest tasks I was involved in was to do with accessibility when we as Rangers were replacing all our old stiles with gates. Accessibility has often cropped up in conversation as it did one day whilst considering what the Fishpool Valley project might end up looking like.…
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That was the question. We don’t think so but is it likely we would have seen them as we go crashing around with chainsaws & strimmers. Why the interest? It’s all to do with the Fishpool Valley project, the picturesque landscape movement and the plans to restore the valley to…
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Back in December 2015 I did an article called Clear Felling Croft Wood; this was part of a long term plan for the restoration of the woods at Croft. The initial proposal for this work was set out in 2010. The proposal was I believe based upon the documentary evidence…
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The Croft Castle Parkland supports a variety of both common and rare bat species. We have in past summers held ‘bat hunts’ mainly for children to come and make use of hand held bat detectors, like the one on the right below, to track the bats that frequent the meadow in the…
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One of the first things I was made aware of when I began my volunteering here at Croft Castle was the history of, or rather the story behind the Sweet Chestnut avenue for which Croft is renown. These trees can be found on what has been designated the Ancient Tree…
