Red Robin Letter
Fashion is no stranger to landscape and garden design. How many of us have fallen for the vibrant charms of Hot Lips (Salvia mycrophylla ‘Hot Lips’), only to find that she (he?) likes her/his drink and is not quite the low maintenance date you hoped for, if she/he is to flaunt her/his charms in the drier garden.
But there is, I suggest, a difference between following and enjoying a horticultural trend or fashion, and mere imitation, due to a lack of imagination, skill, or perhaps the will to fight for something a little more appropriate, exciting or original.
As I blog from an area of housing shortage, there are currently a number of local residential building sites or, interestingly, conversions of offices to residential use. Every one of them seems to be sprouting copious and identical linear plantings of Photinia x fraseri, aka Red Robin, and not a lot else. The occasional Red Robin in garden, park, public space, or housing estate car park, is a delight, glowing like fiery embers amidst a range of other foliage. But the latest trend for Red Robin hedging along the front and side of every new build is becoming a hideous and predictable rash.
Wondering if this personal rant was making me see red, even when no Photinia x Fraseri was actually present, I decided to take a quick survey of the local, residential new builds/conversions. Was I exagerating? I limited the survey to developments which had been completed in the last 18 months, and twelve sites qualified, within a corridor approximately 9 km long by 1 km wide. Of course the sample is far too small to be meaningful, but here are the results, for what they are worth.
Office block conversion: one or two bedroom flats on busy main road in urban area; road frontage planted entirely with Red Robin.
New build on edge of urban area; development of a former garden centre site: mainly 3 bedroom houses. Bedraggled Red Robin on road frontages.
New build infill in existing residential area: two large, three storey houses; Red Robin hedge on road frontage behind brick and flint wall (architecture makes a nod to local building materials); behind the Red Robin hedge there is a heavy dependence on pyracantha and privet. How nostalgic.
Terraced retirement properties in medium density urban area: road frontage a bit retro as Portugal laurel used all the way along.
New build of small houses on outskirts of village: despite solar panels, the landscape is a classic example of how not to do it, but at least it is a Red Robin free zone.
New build terraced houses on brown field site in large village; minimal area for planting - back to the laurels.
New build estate on former garden centre (yes, another one): large houses, and landscape majors on beech hedging throughout, but with an above average number of ornamental species in public realm.
Large area of ‘executive’ housing on grounds of former charitable establishment; a varied planting scheme used for the public realm, although, to me, it smacked of the sort of planting which developers employ for up market housing estates far from public transport or the town centre. After extensive survey work, two Red Robin bushes were tracked down adjacent to a front door in the higher density end of the development. They looked lovely but the resident will need a machete to get in and out if the things aren’t trimmed in the very near future. Note the privet… .
New build terrace housing on village brown field site; attractive planting along house frontages including cordyline, lonicera, camellia, pittosporum and just one Red Robin. As a visitor, this would be my favourite planting scheme, providing a varied, intriguing and currently low level (in the height sense) welcome. Unfortunately, the residents currently look out over this onto a bleak expanse of tarmac. Apologies for lack of photograph; blame the weather and lockdown.
Mixed new build of two houses and numerous flats on busy main road: very little ‘residents’ realm’ but car park and house front gardens heavily dependent on - privet.
New build flats on urban brown field site, garages integral with the building, and very limited soft landscape areas. Not a Red Robin in site however, and even a slight architectural nod to the local townscape of Edwardian terraces (sadly not visible in the photo).
New build houses (probably four or five bedroom jobs) on former residential site. Heavy dependence on cherry laurel hedges, particularly for those fronting onto a busy main road, but retention of some former garden planting and hedging around periphery was a real plus
Town centre office conversion to studio flats: the picture says it all - not even a ram raid planter
And my conclusions? Well, I have to admit that only 25% of the sites were wrapped up in Photinia x fraseri. But if you include old faithfuls such as the laurels and privet, then the percentage of what I consider to be uninspiring planting schemes rises to nearly 60%. Who knew that privet was back in fashion? And if you include the ‘no hopers’ on the design front, the percentage of unexciting or unoriginal schemes runs to 75%.
So what have I got against the extensive use of Red Robin, laurels and privet?
I find mass planting of any single species to be uninspiring in terms of both design and biodiversity. Well designed, mixed block planting of single species, well, yes. SIngle species mass planting, no.
But my bêtes noires come with other, very specific, problems too. They grow quickly, which is probably why developers love them, and to enormous size (after the developers have left). Photinia x fraseri has to be trimmed to keep its contrasting red foliage. Most householders feel an irresistible urge to cut back their hedges during spring, which is also the bird nesting season; not a great idea if you are a nesting bird and is also illegal in most circumstances. If you trim your hedges in autumn, you may remove berries and fruits of both beauty and wildlife value. If you don’t trim your hedges in February, and also honour the bird nesting close season, then hedges can be enormous by the time you can get your shears out. Neighbours complain! If you keep your privets well pruned, they can’t flower; great for those with hay fever, not so for pollinators. And cherry laurels leaves are the very devil to keep trim.
So: suggestions and examples please for beautiful and bidoverse hedge and other linear planing, suitable for residential areas, in particular where where bird nesting related legislation may be a closed book.
Yukon Breakup
Expecting a ‘Yehaa!’ or a ‘Howdy’? No, ‘sut mae’ would be more appropriate. This isn’t north western Canada but it is north west Wales, the land of Welsh speakers and slate mines. Except that Klondike Mill is a lead processing plant.
We have been walking in the woods above Betws-y-Coed in an area which I later discover is called the Gwydir Forest Park. This appears to be a Natural Resources Wales (NRW) non statuatory designation, big on access – the walking, riding and cycling variety – and light touch tourism. The NRW website says that the Park covers an area of 72 sq km, and that ‘Since Victorian times, generations of visitors have walked the woodland paths’. https://naturalresources.wales/days-out/places-to-visit/north-west-wales/sawbench/?lang=en
Indeed, the forest area is riddled with tracks, the sort the Ordnance Survey (OS) describes ominously as ‘Other road, drive or track’, so lowly that they have not been attributed with any colour coding at all, and which my father, a petrol head in love with our first car (an early and second hand Austen A40), would absolutely refuse to drive down. The threat of reaching our destination by a ‘white road’ became a standard family joke.
Although much of Gwydir forest appears to be coniferous (the map is speckled with those iconic, but totally unrealistic, miniature Christmas tree pictograms) our way is through deciduous woodland, twisted, gnarled and dripping with moss. Sessile oak, silver birch, the occasional rowan, and teasing glimpses of other worlds below or beyond us. So far so wonderful.
But on breaking through the tree line to admire a view we come across an example of the other great feature of the Gwydir forests. The NRW website continues, ‘Today, waymarked walking trails allow visitors to explore this landscape of lakes, forests and mountains and learn about its mining history’ … ‘Between 1850 and 1919, lead and zinc mining dominated the area. The legacy of old engine-houses, waste tips and reservoirs are characteristic features of the forest landscape today.’ Forget the ‘generations of visitors’, welcome to the tracks and paths of the miners and mineral workers. Welcome to Klondike Mill! Klondike? Really? Read on.
The Mill was built in 1899 and contributed to an already semi industrialised landscape. A fascinating and detailed Wikipedia article tells its story, one of technological ambition, the economic frailty of mineral extraction and processing, and of subsequent financial and business intrigue. I would add that it is also a story of landscape and environmental impact.
In 1899, it seems that a company called the Welsh Crown Spelter Company (supported by an English company of similar name), purchased and worked a number of lead mines in the area. With expansion in mind, a new and large ‘dressing mill’ was planned for the valley below us. Ore was to be transported to the enormous mill building from the nearby Pandora mine (another great name) by a 2 mile tramway and delivered to the upper storey of the mill by an aerial runway. I can feel the bills mounting as I write.
Power was to be provided by state of the art electricity thanks to Llyn Geirionydd, a nearby lake which had already been conscripted to serve the local mining industry by providing a water supply and power for a generator. A pipeline was now constructed from Llyn Geirionydd to bring water to a tank above the mill, the flow from which powered the mill’s turbine room. The company built a new road, installed the necessary equipment, built enormous shallow holding tanks for effluent and even opened a new mine, next to the mill. Between 100 and 150 staff were employed.
The company’s consulting engineer assured shareholders that ‘the future was bright’, but no ore was processed until the latter part of 1902. Inevitably, debts were enormous, the price of ore was dropping and the mine never returned a profit. The Company went into voluntary liquidation in 1905, although the mill staggered on until 1911.
My thanks to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klondyke_mill for so much detail on this fascinating industrial landscape. What the website isn’t able to tell is the tale of the people who worked there, the conditions of the industry, nor the hardship which must have occurred as a result of this story.
But there is more: it appears that the name ‘Klondike Mill’ only came about due to a gold rush style scam operated in the 1920s. An article published in the Mining Journal in May 1920 implied that the local silver-lead mines had struck a rich lode, and one Joseph Aspinall spent much time and money enticing would be investors. The perpetrator is thought to have been rumbled, however, by another local mine owner, and was imprisoned. But the name of Klondike stuck.
How long does it take for an abandoned industrial site to become a piece of archaeology, a piece of heritage and a tourist asset, rather than a blemish or an intrusion? The mill building is now a Scheduled Monument in the care of Cadw. The ruins are stunning, eerie and well worth a visit. The site is rich in industrial archaeology and a wonderland for landscape detectives, but sadly, still a silent witness to its social history. Over 100 years later, the waste heaps below the mill remain bare and sterile, presumably due to lead contamination. A quick search of the internet still hints at water pollution in the local streams and rivers from the zinc and lead mines; I would be grateful for any further information on this.
Moorish Magic
It all begins with an idea.
The Moors - just 6 miles from the M25
Mention ‘post war Surrey’ and phrases such as Arts and Crafts, stockbroker belt, Tudorbethan, London sprawl, privet hedges, green belt, housing estates or commuter land may come to mind. Yet Surrey has a long history of industry and mineral extraction which often lies forgotten. River valleys such as the Tillingbourne and the Wandle were once lined with mills. In the 1600s the Tillingbourne valley was probably the most industrialised in England and its mills continued working into the 20C. Think gunpowder manufacturing, paper-making, tanning, iron-forging, wire-drawing as well as the more rural corn milling. https://www.surreyhills.org/surrey-hills-60/the-mills-of-the-tillingbourne/ The Wandle, a chalk stream rising on the London facing flanks of the North Downs, supported copper working, tobacco milling and textile mills, amongst many others. https://wandlevalleypark.co.uk/projects/wandle-mills/
Site of the Mixing House at Chilworth Gunpowder Works, Tillingbourne Valley Photo: Tillingbourne Tales Project © The Surrey Hills Board.
Mineral extraction is also no stranger to Surrey. The parallel belts of chalk, clays and greensand have supported a great number of local industries. Mineral winning cannot, to use a planning term, be a ‘footloose’ affair and before Surrey developed good road transport links, mineral based industries remained local to their source material, hence the Surrey lime kilns, or the brickworks which made wonderful, local clay bricks and tiles, which literally supported the vernacular architecture of many Surrey villages and towns.
Which brings me to sand extraction, and my own neighourhood terroir - The Moors – which provided so many of us with our local lockdown breathing space. ‘Moor’ is not a typical component of Surrey place names. Dry, acid Heaths are very Surrey, but Moors, often associated with damp, and upland acid places, are rare in the locality. I suspect damp is the key here, and a strategically placed information board gives us the following: ‘Moor is old Saxon for marsh, and surviving Saxon documents describe the area as ‘marshy with black peaty pools’’.
The Moors isn’t (aren’t?) a typical component of urban fringe open space, either. This long, irregular sliver of land is sandwiched between a landfill site, based on former Fuller’s Earth extraction (thanks to the clay) and a railway line known as, yes, the Quarry Line, (thanks to The London, Brighton and South Coast Railway), and the Moors themselves is/are largely based on restored sand workings. Am I losing you now? Please stay and experience this glorious if quirky piece of open space.
Designated as a nature reserve earlier this century, as an adjunct to, yes, substantial residential development on the sand quarry workings, The Moors was designed as an area of seasonal wetlands and links to further flooded sand pits, before the whole shebang butts its head against the chalk ridge of the North Downs. The local Brook flows gently through, an apparently bucolic and lowland affair, but which is intimately (if benignly) linked to land fill drainage, and which can suddenly flex its muscles when winter downpours swell its load and water surges dramatically over the banks to turn adjacent wetlands into substantial lakes.
The valley footpath has changed from a muddy, puddle jumping, childhood enhancing experience to National Cycle Route 21 (Greenwich to Eastbourne) which has greatly extended usage and accessibility to quality green space. Part of me, however, still misses the slow, tranquil, low key ‘walk to the stream’, although fitness levels have universally increased, as pedestrians may now need to leap smartly to one side to allow the faster runners and cyclists through: the inevitable compromises of urban living.
So, yes, we get the quirky; but where’s the glory? Despite, or maybe because of, the total lack of maintenance during lockdown, this year’s summer wildflowers were a stress buster in themselves. Colour, vibrancy, mass, movement and tranquillity were there in spades. A smaller wetland was dry, revealing a massive horizontal poplar trunk and the largest burdock plant I’ve ever seen: the very best of natural play.
The bigger wetlands were, well, pretty wet, and busy with swans, egrets, ducks such as teal and mallard, cormorants and great crested grebe. Sure, the paths run close to the land fill site and the railway embankment, but glance over to the other view: rushes moving in the breeze, mass swathes of natural colour, poplars swaying gently, veteran oaks of enormous stature marking a former field boundary, butterflies and bees in thrall to nectar, and those stunning views of the North Downs.
To be honest, the landfill’s methane guzzling generators are noisy and sometimes smelly, but most of us forgive them as they seem to represent a positive outcome from our dreadful habit of throwing our rubbish into holes in the ground. But then there is the ‘hedge on legs’ which is what you get when you don’t trim hedge plants on a regular basis or remove stakes and shelters. It provides an excellent green screen between cycle path and nature reserve, but it needs a fence to keep the cattle (sorry, conservation grazers) in and the dogs out. It’s not what I call a hedgerow.
But despite the urban quirks, the ‘promise’ of a landscape, in terms of space and time, is perfectly encapsulated in The Moors. This space is connected: cyclists – if you keep going, Paris is a just a designated cycle path away; pedestrians - home is a short stroll along the valley; for the more energetic, those North Downs are easily accessible by footpath and bridleway; bird watchers and butterfly spotters, this is for you; shoppers, Sainsbury’s is only a 20 minute walk and, according to Google Maps, ‘mostly flat’. In time terms too, the offer is good. ‘Seasonal wetlands’ means seasonal change. Different birds (snipe in winter), different berries, different colours, and always water – more water, less water and sometimes, when the footpath floods, just a little bit too much water. https://www.surreywildlifetrust.org/nature-reserves/nutfield-marshes-inc-moors-spynes-mere-holmethorpe-lagoons
Welcome
It all begins with an idea.
Welcome to Terroir - a blog about our landscape and environment
Terroir has been in gestation for many years but to go live during an international pandemic with severe movement restrictions may seem downright perverse. Nothing, however, has taught us the value of our landscape, our outdoors - our shores and mountains, our streets and neighbourhood parks, our commons and heaths, our cities, towns, and villages, our rivers, woodlands and fields, our whole and holistic environment, our terroir - like the Corona revolution.
Ladies and Gentlemen, Mesdames, Messieurs, may I present - TERROIR