Taking the Long View in the Troutbeck Valley

Alder roots in water, Trout Beck

I’ve just seen a blackcap fly out of the tree, wander around the grass by the trunk, then fly onto a rock in the beck. White belly, dust brown back and wings, and a black cap to top off its white face. A dipper flew by earlier and now a pair of ducks – mallards – has… Read More

Rising Above the White Noise : Blue at the Langstrath Birch

Samara, rising above the whitre noise.

There was nothing but white noise. I was standing in the centre of it, shaking from the adrenalin that surged through me with the fear of slipping as I jumped from one wet rock to another, trying to keep myself steady while holding a 44-metre spread of sixty words that were weighty with water. At… Read More

Oak Coppicing: the trees just keep coming

tidying up a freshly cut birch.

This is what the Japanese might call forest bathing. I am standing in the centre of a natural quadraphonic sound system with birdsong coming from all directions, and the gentle tumble of a river as their undertone. The air is still and sun is streaming in through the leafless oaks. Oaks in their hundreds. I’m… Read More

Walking the Line of Sight : plans for the next installation

Under Helm Sycamore in February

The Under Helm Sycamore stands on a steep slope made all the more precarious to humans by the fact that it is covered in a shifting layer of stone slabs. In some places, stone, earth and moss have worked together to give some stability, but much of the stone is so loose that the ground moves beneath your feet, as if… Read More

Planting trees in the Lake District : Veterans of the future

Making one of the 50 cages built in Wasdale.

You don’t get veteran trees without first having seeds. And while regeneration is the ‘natural’ way of trees creating their own history, for many centuries humans have been involved with the creation of woodland. In the early nineteenth century a spate of planting on the edge of Ullswater created Glencoyne Park – a deer park… Read More

‘A Halo of Memories’ : The Calgarth Oak

At the Calgarth Oak

We have listened to many stories about trees over the last eighteen months, but today the story we heard was far more moving than we had expected. Trevor Avery had been in touch to say he had something he wanted to show us, and it involved a tree. We met him this morning, in the… Read More