West View Park, Halifax

 

West View Park does what it says on the tin.  This is the view and it is due west towards Lancashire.  Like so many people, we tend to neglect our local attractions but are trying to get round them.

Certainly, with the lovely Autumn sun and the leaves turning, we will not find anything better farther afield.

 

The park is on the west edge of Halifax and was proposed by two local businessmen, Mr H C McCrea and Mr E Robinson, in around 1894. The Parks Committee Minutes do not refer to the design of the park; it is implied that the benefactors, McCrea and Robinson, undertook responsibility for the park's layout. In July 1896 the park was opened. We forget how much we owe our Victorian ancestors for establishing such lovely green spaces in our towns.

Most of its ambitious design is now lost but it is still ‘a nice place to be’ and traces of the original design can be found here and there.

And this brave soldier from the Boer War has looked out towards Lancashire since at least 1905.  Perhaps he anticipates a return of the War of the Roses.

Pensthorpe Wildlife Trust

A lot our readers will recognise some of the pictures on this post from watching Springwatch over the past couple of years.

We were discussing a possible visit to Westonbirt National Arboretum, where Autumnwatch is being filmed at the moment, on our way home from Plymouth next Monday – weather permitting.

That reminded me that I hadn’t mentioned our visit to Pensthorpe in the Summer.  We spent several hours there and thoroughly enjoyed it.  Here are some pictures for your enjoyment.

Looking out from the observation gallery

Looking back to the observation gallery

Humans give way to birds

Part of the Millennium Garden

It’s not all birds

If you are near Fakenham, do visit.  It’s worth it.

Sissinghurst Castle Gardens

Sissinghurst Castle Gardens are claimed to be the most visited in England. Certainly they were incredibly busy on the Monday we went along. Visitors from many countries and all ages thronged the garden with cameras and notebooks – this is a ‘Gardeners’ Garden’ and has been influential, not just in designing stately homes but for many small gardens.

Vita Sackville-West and Sir Harold Nicolson found the property derelict in 1930. Harold wrote in his diary that they found a vast accumulation of rubbish: ‘rusty iron, old bedsteads, old ploughshares, old cabbage stalks, old broken-down earth closets, old matted wire and mountains of sardine tins, all muddled up in a tangle of bindweed, nettles and ground elder’.

From this unpromising beginning, they created a beautiful garden. Harold was a classicist and laid out the structural scheme of the garden, dividing it into a series of compartments which could each be viewed separately.  The lime walk was his pride and joy.

Vita was a romantic and the planting which fills the flower beds shows it. Possibly the most famous ‘room’ in the whole garden is the White Garden.

 

The couple first opened the garden to the public in 1938. The proceeds raised £25.14s.6d and Vita nicknamed the visitors 'shillingses', as one shilling (5p) was the admission price. There are accounts of visitors encountering Vita working in the garden and chatting to her.  She gave cuttings to visitors and enjoyed correspondence with some of them.

Vita died in 1962 and Harold and her two sons decided that the best way to preserve the garden was for ownership to be transferred to the National Trust. This was completed in April 1967.

We took 183 usable photos between us and a few are up on Picasa.  I wish we could share them all with you.

Daffodils for Mothers' Day

It is Mothers’ Day on this side of the pond on Sunday 14th March and it may be hard to find the traditional bunch of daffodils.  The extreme cold weather has held back the plants by 4 weeks in some areas. Cornwall and Lincolnshire are our main areas for growing the heralds of spring and about half are exported.  It's a big worry for growers as the season peaks at Mothers’ Day and Easter which is early this year. For the rest of us, it means even longer before we see the roadsides and gardens awash with colour. Here, in the North, our plants are just peeping through the ground to check if it is safe to come up.

To cheer us up, here are some daffodils we saw in The Netherlands a few years ago. We went to see the tulips at Keukenhof, not far from where we were staying in Amsterdam, but that was another late season and we caught the daffodils instead. If you are every in Amsterdam, this is a 'must visit'.

I bought a bunch of artificial tulips at the market to bring home, which was probably a good idea as we are still enjoying them and they make a lovely memento of a great trip.

Japanese Knotweed, A tasty snack for Psyllids – we hope.

The news in the UK yesterday was as depressing as ever, Apart from the real news of disasters, wars and crime, it includes political ramblings (yawn), the Oscars (yawn again), and the tenth anniversary of the London Eye (where did those years go?).  One item did catch my eye, though.  Japanese knotweed was introduced into many countries as an ornamental plant in the 19th century – though no botanist seems to want to take credit for it. Now it is illegal in the UK to spread the dratted plant and is classified as controlled waste. It will burst through, tarmac, concrete and undermine buildings. 

There have even been cases where a mortgage has been refused where Japanese knotweed is found in the garden. It grows at the rate of more than a metre a month and its roots can go down 3 metres (9.8 ft). Herbicides need repeated applications over several years and the strongest of these have been withdrawn from sale because of health risks.

Now, for the first time, a biological control is to be tried – a tiny insect which, the scientists hope, will only eat the target plant. The UK lags behind other countries in introducing biological controls.  Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and the US have tackled 100 weeds between them with complete or partial success in half the programmes. Like most non-scientists, the idea of introducing another alien species makes me nervous but, if we don’t find an answer, it is estimated that the UK faces a cost of £13.5bn ($20.4bn; 15€) by the turn of the century (according to the BBC).

So chomp away, little psyllids, but please make sure to follow the diet recommended by the scientists.

On a more cheerful note, I walked over to All Souls Graveyard, where the nasty plant had almost obliterated everything except the trees, to see the current state of the site. I found that the Council’s efforts over the past few years have worked and the area is recovering. Local residents have planted bulbs and large clumps of snowdrops are thriving.  A good news story at last. Though it won't make the headlines.

The first photo is licensed under Wikipedia Commons Germany
The second one is licensed under  Wikipedia Commons Netherlands. It was taken at Beekbergen (The Netherlands). A few years ago, this place was still Knotweed-free