A friend once remarked that ‘blackberries should be free but not easy’, an approach to foraging with which I concurred completely. 

As many readers have probably noticed, however, the blackberry harvest this year has been early, plentiful and easy to reach.  I suppose we must take our climate change pleasures where we can, but it still leaves a bemused sensation of cheating when the blackberries are both free and easy. 

With reports of generous blackberry pickings flooding in, Terroir set off with numerous re-usable plastic boxes but minus the usual necessary walking stick and heavy duty gardening gloves: a walk in the park – only better!

The sound track to our expedition was the key to the landscape through which we were walking.  Squawking geese provided the overture and were joined by the occasional mewing buzzard for the first movement.  As we progressed, we started to hear the rumble of quarry machinery and, eventually, the sounds of a motorway.  The counterpoint was provided by the huffing of dogs and the calls of their owners, and the rattle of a bicycle chain.

The brambles in the massive hedgerows either side of the track leant towards us, offering an easy to reach, takeaway banquet, of berries, ranging from small, hard, green fruits, through swelling, red adolescents to the black bounty of the final offering.  Even here we soon learned the difference between the young adults (black but bashful) and the larger, shiny, and totally luscious mature fruit. 

Many other hedgerow shrubs were also shouting their wares.  The wild roses and hawthorns (below left and centre) were covered in hips and haws.  The guelder rose was beginning to look like a Christmas tree (below right).  Only the blackthorn was reluctant to offer sloes.   

So, where were we?  We’ve given you plenty of audio and visual clues.  The observant and regular reader will probably have guessed - correctly - that we were in the county of Surrey.  Surrey geology is dominated by the North Downs (chalk) and the Greensand Ridge, separated by parallel strips of Gault and Wealden Clay.   There are two motorways in Surrey – the east/west M25, and the north/south M23 at the eastern end of the county.  But Surrey boasts six National Cycle Network routes, plenty of lakes which are home to flocks of geese (and broody swans), and several active sand and clay quarries. 

Give up?  This particular blackberry heaven was located on the Greensand, to the south of the M25, and immediately to the west of the M23.  National Cycle Route 21 passes through on its way to and from Eastbourne and Greenwich.  The key to this area, however, is the valuable sand resource which is the basis for a large active quarry and several wetlands based on former workings.