Herm, Channel Islands

 

Herm is one of the smaller Channel Islands, being just over a mile long from north to south and about half a mile across at its widest point. It lies to the east of Guernsey, from where it can be reached via a 20 minute ferry crossing.

The island has been occupied for at least 5,000 years, as is evidenced by a large number of Neolithic tombs and artefacts such as tools and weapons. It is known that Roman traders visited the island about 2,000 years ago.

During the 6^th century, Herm was a place of meditation for monks from Jersey and Sark, who built a small chapel here. By the 10^th century, Herm was ruled by the Dukes of Normandy and eventually came under the control of the Abbey of Mont St Michel. From 1204 Herm, along with the rest of the Channel Islands, came under the control of the English crown.

In the 19^th century, granite quarries were established on the island and a large community infrastructure was established to support the 400 or so quarrymen and their families. Until the 1880s, Herm granite was very much in demand, and it was exported to England for use in the building of roads and bridges. However, the quarries later fell into disuse.

During World War II, Herm, along with the rest of the Channel Islands, was occupied by German forces. It was liberated in 1945, and from 1949 it was leased to the Wood family, who now manage Herm and seek to preserve the island’s beauty while improving facilities for visitors, of whom thousands visit every year.

Despite its small size, Herm has a variety of natural habitats, including sand dunes, maritime Heath, grassland and woodland, as well as sandy beaches, rock pools and steep granite cliffs.

Herm is very popular with bird lovers. Its resident birds include robins, wrens, blackbirds, thrushes, kestrels and long-eared owls, as well as seabirds. It is also visited by many migrants on their passage from southern Europe and North Africa towards the British Isles in the spring. These include whitethroats, willow warblers and whinchats.

Herm’s many natural habitats support over 450 different plant species. During summer the island is ablaze with bright yellow gorse and clifftop flowers such as sea and red campion, heather and foxglove. The flat northern part of the island is covered in rockrose and many other tiny flowers, while the sand dunes that fringe the shoreline have been planted with marram grass in an attempt to halt erosion.

Herm is traffic-free, apart from a few farm tractors. Walkers can enjoy seeing the island from the tracks that cross the island from north to south and east to west, and the path, about four miles long, that goes round the entire coast.

Visitors can stay at the White House Hotel on the island, or in one of the self-catering cottages and apartments. There is also a campsite.

© John Welford

The Oaks of Sherwood Forest, Nottinghamshire

 

Sherwood Forest in Nottinghamshire is considerably smaller than it once was. The National Nature Reserve, which attracts around 350,000 visitors a year, is around 1,000 acres in size, whereas the original Forest occupied much of the county of Nottinghamshire at the time of Domesday Book in 1086.

One feature that makes the Forest particularly attractive is the preponderance of magnificent oak trees, many of which are extremely old. As one walks through the Forest on the well-maintained tracks and paths, it is impossible not to notice a number of carcasses of very old trees that must once have been absolutely massive. There are also many younger oak trees to be seen, at various stages of maturity, as well as other species.

What one can see today is evidence of how the Forest was managed in past centuries. During the heyday of Britain’s colonial expansion, and her dominance of the seas from the time of Queen Elizabeth I onwards, there was a huge demand for large wooden ships, which were built from English oak. Sherwood Forest supplied a considerable amount of timber for this purpose, as did other English woodlands.

Oak trees are naturally long-lived, maturing over hundreds of years. Some may even live for up to 1,000 years. Foresters seeking oak trees to harvest for timber would look for trees that were neither too old nor too young and not misshapen. That means that many trees in a natural woodland such as Sherwood Forest would not be suitable and would therefore be left.

The rejected trees that were too young to harvest in, say, the 18^th century are fully mature today. The older and misshapen trees have since reached the ends of their natural lives and have formed the carcasses that can today be seen dotted around the Forest. It is clear from some of the dead trees, which are twisted into the most extraordinary shapes, that they would never have been suitable for providing timber for Nelson’s Navy.

The gaps left by the harvested oaks have been filled by later growth, not only of oak trees but also other native species such as beech, birch and ash.

 

The Major Oak

One tree that visitors flock to see is a massive oak that could be as old as 1,000 years, although an age of around 800 years is probably more likely. Although it is “major” in the commonly accepted meaning of that word, having a girth of 33 feet (10 metres), that is not why it is so called. It owes that adjective to Major Hayman Rooke, who wrote a description of it in 1790.

The Major Oak (see photo above) is popularly associated with the legend of Robin Hood, who was supposed to have sheltered beneath it, along with his merry men, during their sojourn in the Forest while hiding from the Sheriff of Nottingham during the last years of the 12^th century. The timing would only be correct if the tree is indeed 1,000 years old. If the younger estimates are closer to the mark, the major oak might only have been a sapling, or even an acorn, at the time.

Whatever the truth of the matter, the Major Oak has certainly been revered for a very long time. The tree would almost certainly have collapsed and become yet another forest carcass had the Victorians not propped up its lower branches with the scaffolding poles one can see today.

It has been suggested that the Major Oak is actually three trees growing together. It is not uncommon for oak saplings to fuse together, and that could be one reason why the tree was never felled for timber. It might have been thought that the wood lacked internal strength as a result of its structure.

Whatever the reason for its survival, the Major Oak is definitely worth seeing!

© John Welford

 

Cleopatra's Needle, Victoria Embankment, London

 

Visitors to London, walking along the Victoria Embankment of the River Thames, might be surprised to see a genuine Egyptian obelisk standing about halfway between the Waterloo and Hungerford bridges. It has been there since 1878, although it underwent a lengthy and tortuous journey before it arrived at its current destination.

The Needle is nearly 60 feet high and weighs about 186 tons. It was cut from the quarries of Aswan in Upper Egypt. In about 1475 BC it was transported down the Nile to be erected at Heliopolis and was carved with dedications to various gods and symbols representing Pharaoh Tethmosis III. it was later moved to Alexandria.

The connection with Queen Cleopatra is a tenuous and possibly fictitious one. One tradition supposes that it was carved with Cleopatra’s name as a memorial to the son whom Julius Caesar had by Cleopatra, but there is no real evidence for this.

The obelisk stood at Alexandria for many years until it toppled over into the sand. Later Egyptians had little idea what to do with it until the Turkish viceroy of Egypt, Mohammed Ali, presented it to the British in 1819. The question then was how to transport it to London?

It was not until 1877 that Gen Sir James Alexander suggested to John Dixon, an English engineer living in Alexandria, that he might turn his attention to the problem. Helped by an enormous £10,000 contribution by Erasmus Wilson, a surgeon, Dixon built a cylindrical iron pontoon to contain the obelisk which would then be towed all the way to London.

The venture nearly foundered during a gale in the Bay of Biscay, off the French coast, which cost the lives of six seamen. However, the obelisk was able to continue its journey and eventually reached London in January 1878.

The original plan was to erect the obelisk outside the Houses of Parliament, but the site proved to be unstable. It was therefore moved to its present position overlooking the River Thames.

Buried beneath Cleopatra’s Needle is a curious time capsule containing contemporary newspapers, a set of coins, a razor and a box of pins, four Bibles in different languages, a copy of Bradshaw’s railway guide and photographs of 12 of the best-looking Englishwomen of the day!

Visitors might notice a number of indentations on the plinth that supports the Needle. These are the result of bomb damage caused by a Zeppelin raid during World War I.

© John Welford