Tag: Ash

Along the South Downs from Washington to Bramber

Daniel Greenwood3 Comments

South Downs Way between Washington & Bramber (10 miles), West Sussex, January 2024

This is a long post with a lot of South Downs history in it that dates back over 1000 years. I wanted to call it ‘Peaks and troughs on the South Downs Way’ but that wouldn’t have done it justice.

This walk is from the first days of 2024 and has been in my mind ever since. It’s actually two years to the day (I love that stuff). The walk left me feeling ecstatic in the quiet way that walking can.

I completed the walk using public transport, with a bus to Washington and then a bus from Bramber to Pulborough, and the train from Pulborough. Planet saved.

The walk began by passing this excellent egg box.

From Washington I walked up to the pocked and scarred hills of Washington Chalk Pits, ghosts of old industry – much more of that to follow. This place is excellent for butterflies so it’s worth visiting in the summer months. The photo here is looking west towards Storrington and Amberley. Here a buzzard flew low over the hill, looking for prey among the chalk pits.

Far from being a place of wilderness, the South Downs have a deeply industrial feel to me. This is also because the views are so expansive you can see the stretch of human activity from miles away. This is the Rampion windfarm.

The Rampion windfarm cable trench, near Truleigh Hill, May 2018

The windfarm needed a trench to be cut through the Downs when the electricity cables were routed north to the substation at Twineham. This image is from 2018 near Truleigh Hill showing the fresh, exposed chalk. The windfarm will be seen again on this eastward journey.

A man with a long beard had parked his tractor at the side of the South Downs Way where it approaches Chanctonbury Ring, and was breaking sticks from a fallen ash tree at the field boundary. Ash trees will pop up again along this journey.

The grass is always snooker table smooth where the beech trees of the ring come into view. I’ve posted before about a walk that heads south from here to Cissbury Ring, the site of another Iron Age fort. As I approached the Ring a herd of deer ran across ahead of me, leaping over the path.

Beyond the trees the metal orchids (aerials) of Truleigh Hill mark the South Downs Way some 10-15 miles east.

In isolation these windswept beech trees cross more gentle lines in the landscape.

The archetypal folds of the Downs, stubbled by trees and scrub.

Away from Chanctonbury a stonechat perched on a fencepost. These chats are your friends in the winter downland.

Looking down towards Steyning, the Adur had flooded. Why have these bales been left to grow mossy?

A tribute to one of the downland farmers, a sea of arable crop washing away to the horizon. The gleaming top right-hand corner of this photo is indeed the sea.

Beyond the crop a rupture in the chalk where the Shoreham cement works pipes up.

These wonderful fence posts are plopped into place by the rangers, the volunteers or the rights of way team from the National Park. The kindness of fingerposts.

The sheer openness of the Downs and its skies. The memories of these wide open spaces can stay with you for years, the very essence of why people deserve the right to pass along these ways.

Zooming in on Truleigh Hill – what is cloud, hill or perhaps even the sea? The eye plays tricks.

A memorial to two brothers who passed in their thirties and forties, replete with tinsel and flowers potted on either side. A Mini spinning by in the lane behind.

Another ghost of the Downs – an ash tree dying from the disease. One limb has fallen and more will follow in the winds. If you look closely you can see the remains of what are probably shaggy bracket fungi. Fear not, there is hope for ash trees in Britain.

Tilled fields, with Truleigh Hill edging closer, though it’s not part of this walk. The copse of beech trees is likely to shelter pheasants bred for shooting, a common economic activity in the South Downs, and not without its problems. Unfortunately it appears that the persecution of birds of prey (often linked to shooting estates) is rearing its head in the South Downs National Park.

Chalk flints clawed to the surface at the edge of some of the ploughed field the South Downs Way passes.

Peaks and troughs! One unmissable part of this walk (in many senses) is the pig farm right next to the South Downs Way. A man was piling up hay for the pigs and from a distance I heard him call one a ‘f***ing c**t’.

‘Really, us?’ they ask.

The windfarm once again comes into view with Lancing College, a boarding school, rising above the trees at the edge of the Downs. When I was a kid and misbehaving my parents would threaten to send me to boarding school. Now I realise they could never have afforded it! Bravo, mum.

I’ve reduced the exposure on this photo to bring out the mood in the sky. Another pheasant copse on the hilltop?

Shoreham cement works is built into the site of an old chalk quarry, which dates back to the 18th century. It’s on the market for housing as of October 2025.

This pre-1950s photo wasn’t one I took, but it shows the cement works before they were rebuilt into the Soviet-esque version currently standing. This article has a lot of interesting information and old photos looking at the history of the place.

St. Botolph’s Church is one of the oldest in Sussex, dating back to pre-Norman England. St. Botolph is a Saxon Saint associated with river crossings. The Sussex Parish Churches website points out that the village connected to the church ‘was an important port on the lower Adur until the sea receded after about 1350’. I enjoy the lichens growing on this old metal sign.

Dating from around 950, St Botolph’s was built near one of the first industrial trade routes in Britain, a Roman road along which tin was carried from the Cornish mines to the East Sussex seaport of Pevensey. Two thousand years on, and industry still stamps its mark in this book of rural West Sussex, with the railway line and modern cement works visible just a few hundred metres away.

Gail Simmons, Between the Chalk and the Sea: p.157

We’ll get to that railway line in a little bit, but after being out in the cold January air, it was nice to find a sheltered place to sit for a little while.

There’s a window that dates to the Saxon period at St. Botolph’s, which to me feels more mysterious than the much earlier Roman occupation (AD43-400). My guess would be the ’round-headed’ window in the top right here is the Saxon one, as per the official descriptions.

This should give a sense of the shape and colour of the interior. The nave and chancel also date to Saxon times.

The paintings at St. Botolph’s are subject to debate, and are hard to see. They could be part of an unproven ‘Lewes Group’ of wall paintings, with some potentially dating back to the 10th century (scroll down for more detail here).

St. Botolph’s is a magnificent little church with thousands of years of history packed into its flinty walls. You can see my church galleries here.

A helpful guide to what’s possible on the South Downs Way. I took the broken route to Bramber, having travelled the 7 miles from Washington.

Sheep-marked fields where the Downs rise again above the Adur, towards Truleigh Hill and then Devils Dyke.

An indicator of what is to come when you descend from the Downs into the Low Weald – oak trees. This was the only one I saw on this rather treeless walk. There should really be an owl in that trunk.

While the River Adur now wends its way through to Shoreham (the cement works chimney can be seen on the left-hand side) this is where the sea once swept. The river could be travelled by boat as far as Bramber, where my walk ended.

A small flock of swans roosting on the bank as the evening sun slips below the Downs. Another solitary ash tree survives here along the river. Over my shoulder the scene was far less tranquil:

The A283 is a major connecting road between the A24 and Shoreham where it joins the A27, the road that roars at the feet of the Downs for many miles.

The path through the wet grassland to Bramber. It amazes me to think the sea once reached this far. But that’s not the only ghostly presence haunting these marshes.

More recently this was the course of the Steyning Line, a railway now converted to an accessible walking and cycling path between Guildford and Shoreham. I was surprised to read that railway enthusiasts want to bring this line back. But for a photo caption, the article includes no mention of the fact this is now the Downslink path, one of the only truly safe long-distance walking and cycling routes in the area.

Bramber’s St. Nicholas Church as seen from the old railway path. The remnant wall above is one of the only remaining parts of Bramber Castle, with both the castle and church dating to the 11th century after the Norman Invasion of 1066. The castle has was a motte and bailey:

Bramber Castle was founded by William de Braose as a defensive and administrative centre for Bramber, one of the six administrative regions – each of which was controlled by a castle – into which Sussex was divided following the Norman Conquest. It was held almost continually by de Braose and his descendants from its foundation by 1073 until 1450.

Bramber Castle history webpage – English Heritage

At this point my camera battery ran out of steam, so I took a few final photos of Bramber on my Fairphone.

You can see how the raised position of the church and castle was chosen. The hills in the distance are the South Downs, to pass to the left (east) will take you to Truleigh Hill and eventually Devil’s Dyke. It’s believed Oliver Cromwell’s army set up guns on this hill during the English Civil War in 1642.

Bramber is a village of largely unspoilt brick and timber-framed buildings. I stopped off at the Bramber Hotel for a quick half before catching the bus, and encountered a wonderful oak timber-framed building.

St. Mary’s House dates back to the 12th century and is open to visitors during set periods. There’s also a tea room. There’s a nice write up of the history of the building on the St. Mary’s website, including the recent investment to bring it back to life.

Thanks for reading, it’s been a long journey.

South Downs | Sussex Weald | Oak timbers | Churches

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The ash tree’s survival

Daniel Greenwood3 Comments

I noticed some good news about ash trees recently and wanted to share my experience of a difficult decade for the European ash (Fraxinus excelsior, referred to here as ‘ash’), as well as some of the photos I’ve taken of this iconic tree. Working through this post, I’ve realised just how many images I’ve compiled down the years. I’ve also realised just how much I care about this tree as a species, and how painful it is to see it effectively being erased from the landscape by disease.

Ash is one of the first tree species that I really began to notice and tried to understand ecologically and culturally. When I started to take notice of wild trees, I saw that ash was everywhere in south London, seeding in railway sidings, parks, gardens, and woods. I’ve cut them down (not particularly big ones), planted them, pollarded them, photographed them and breathed their oxygen (obviously most people in the UK have!).

What do ash trees mean to people?

Pollarded (or shredded?) ash trees outside shepherd’s huts in Asturias, Spain in June 2011

I’d like to start overseas, as ash dieback is Europe-wide problem.

This week it was 14 years since I visited Los Picos de Europe (The Peaks of Europe National Park) in Asturias, Northern Spain as a volunteer.

The photo above came up in my ‘memories’ and it was only then that I remembered the ash trees. This was a remote village high in the mountains where people were making cheese (they didn’t want the name of the village to be shared online). The ash trees here are pollards, with the branches cut back to make a single stick of a trunk. It’s probably severe enough to be considered ‘shredding’, which Oliver Rackham wrote about.

Lollipop ash trees growing close to the old shepherd’s huts in a remote part of the Picos de Europa, June 2011

The reason this is done is to provide food for sheep – the fresh green growth of new ash leaves, which they love.

A massive pollarded ash tree next to a restored hay barn in Wensleydale, Yorkshire in 2018

Interestingly, it’s similar in the Yorkshire Dales, where ash trees are abundant (see above and header image) and so are sheep. During one holiday in the Dales, I remember seeing a sheep climbing up a wall in order to nibble the leaves of an ash. What is also interesting to me, is that this is the same model of livestock grazing which spread from the Middle East, across Europe and into Britain thousands of years ago. It doesn’t sound dissimilar to the spread of ash dieback.

A typically large ash stool in a former hedgeline or boundary, coppiced or laid for many years (near Reeth in the Yorkshire Dales, 2019)

It’s not uncommon to see very large ash stools (old trees that have been regularly felled for timber) in boundary lines in places like Yorkshire, Sussex and Kent. I’m sure their coppicing was probably to provide ample feed to sheep, as in Northern Spain, above.

Dartmoor, Devon in 2023

This mammoth ash in Dartmoor National Park in Devon is possibly the biggest I’ve ever seen.

What do ash trees mean to wildlife?

A diseased ash tree with a large number of King Alfred’s Cakes fungi growing on the main trunk in Sussex in 2023

The fungus King Alfred’s Cakes has benefited in the short-term from an explosion in dead ash wood to colonise. The longer-term picture for fungi and lichen is not so good. Ash has a number of lichens that depend on it in places like the Lake District (my knowledge doesn’t extend very far here) which needs living trees.

A mossy ash surrounded by wild garlic in Wensleydale, Yorkshire in May 2018

Ash benefits ancient woodland flowers that arrive early in spring because the leaves are compound (they have leaflets, not broad leaves) and allow light into the woodland floor. Species like wood anemone and wild garlic do particularly well in their dappled early spring light.

Magnificent veteran ash tree with Ullswater behind it in the Lake District. The top trunk of the tree has collapsed on some farm equipment in the background (2023)

I’ve encountered several ash down the years that have been for the chop on reasonable safety grounds in London, but then have been saved by the fact bats are living in them.

Bats can live under loose bark, in woodpecker holes (which are often found in older ash) and in large crevices. This magnificent ash was near Ullswater in the Lake District and had suffered what the tree officers would deem a catastrophic failure, but the woodland ecologists would be licking their lips at!

The Timeline

2012: when ash dieback arrived in Britain

A range of leafless ash trees alongside the South Downs Way near Ditchling in November 2024

One afternoon in the autumn of 2012 I was finishing my working day in the woods when I noticed the dying-back of an ash sapling. The stem had lesions and the leaves were drooping. It was my first year as a community woodland officer and ash tree seedlings were so numerous we actually had to pull them up in certain places. They were the epitome of a sometimes invasive British plant.

It was the first time I had seen a European ash tree (Fraxinus excelsior) infected with ash dieback disease, known scientifically as Hymenoscyphus fraxineus.

The first time I saw and photographed ash dieback disease in Sydenham Hill Wood, autumn 2012

At the time we needed to report every new sighting to the Forestry Commission (as it was then), to help map the spread of this devastating disease. It spread so quickly that reporting became redundant, as were widespread protection measures. I remember someone remarking that asking people to clean their boots would be about as effective as asking the birds to clean their feet.

2017: ash dieback decimates the South Downs

Leafless diseased ash trees above Steyning, seen from the South Downs Way in February 2023

It was only really when I moved to Sussex to work in the South Downs National Park that the real impact dawned on me.

Eastbourne appearing beyond infected ash trees in June 2017

During a walk with the South Downs Eastern Area Ranger team, I was taken aback by the way declining ash trees were opening up views of the coastal town of Eastbourne. It has continued to progress since then.

A young ash tree experiencing ash dieback from the top-down on the South Downs, May 2019

Groves of once green ash woodlands and verdant hedgerow trees were dying en masse. In the past few years trees along highways have been felled due to the threat to public safety from these brittle, dead trees overhanging roads, paths and properties.

Heartwood decay visible in piled ash logs shortly after being felled, July 2025

The main concern is how the decay enters the heartwood (as above) and causes structural failure even within living trees, meaning the ash are more likely to fall unexpectedly. I spoke to a council tree officer who said that there have been a number of fatalities of tree workers due to ash trees. It’s tragic.

A diseased ash tree that had fallen across a footpath in the South Downs, logged and cleared in February 2023

But how did ash dieback get to Britain? Fungi spread through spores, tiny particles that ‘seed’ in appropriate places and then grow into a living fungus that produces fruiting bodies. The fruiting bodies (mushrooms, to most people) then produce the spores. The ash dieback fungus is native to Asia, but there’s no way it could get to Europe alone. People helped it, accidentally, to arrive in Europe over 30 years ago. In Britain, it may have been helped by the process of growing UK saplings in Dutch hot houses, alongside infected ash saplings, and bringing them back to the UK.

2024: signs of resistance

This phone pic was taken in July 2025 when my local green space had been subject to ash removal. The logs show the scars of the disease (see previous) but the scene is not one of disaster. There are healthy ash trees on either side that are surviving and, indeed, thriving considering what they are up against.

That is something The Living Ash Project have been logging(!) – trees showing mild symptoms and overcoming the dieback.

This rather optimistic article highlights more of the positive steps, and advanced scientific interventions being made to save ash trees.

Ash trees in isolated areas, away from ash woodlands, may be in a much better position (literally) to survive the disease epidemic because they are not overwhelmed by spores from ash leaf litter found in thick leaf litter.

A turning point for ash trees?

A mature ash tree in Wensleydale, Yorkshire in May 2018

The news for ash trees in 2025 is much more promising.

An article in The Guardian reports that ash trees in Britain are showing signs of evolving genetic strains of ash that will not succumb to the fungus. This means ash trees could return to the landscape in due course, though not in the same way.

In the south-east of England where I live the disease is said to have peaked.

Other research has shown that some isolated ash trees are surviving. I can vouch for this – there’s an ash tree in my mum’s garden (c.15 years old) in London that I’ve trimmed back once before. It is flourishing, so much so that the neighbours are asking for it to be cut down again. Welcome to London.

Large ash in the Howgill Fells, Yorkshire Dales (close to Cumbria) in 2019

There is also a plea on the back of the latest research for woodlands to be allowed to regenerate on their own. Many people will be keen to point out the role of ‘rewilding’ in helping this process. In many cases it’s just a matter of leaving woodlands in certain places to do their thing, probably behind some fencing.

Here’s hoping that ash trees can be saved across Europe and wild trees are given the space to do their thing. In the end they may outlive us.

Thanks for reading.

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#FungiFriday: deadwood brings the disco

Daniel GreenwoodLeave a comment

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Fungi Friday: 24th January 2020

A week of blissful winter sunshine and endless starry skies, cut short by low clouds. What is the point of January, many ask. If fungi asked themselves that question, they probably wouldn’t be here and therefore nor would we. Nature does not disappear completely in winter. The paucity of species can help introduce us to new ones we never knew existed.

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January to me is a good time to find slime moulds. Yes, I suppose this is two straight weeks of cheating after last week’s lichen love-in. But if this is the only way to raise awareness about slime moulds, I don’t think fungi will mind. I had an hour to look through the wooded slopes of an old estate in East Sussex, to find this week’s quarry.

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There was very little fungi of the mushroom kind, in fact, none. But one of the bad funguys had been making itself felt in the wood. Ash trees had been felled after becoming infected with ash dieback. I used to monitor a woodland at the time of ash dieback’s arrival in the UK and have, since about 2014, watched it rocket across the country. In Sussex it is killing lots of ash trees that are under 50 years of age and the landscape of the South Downs is losing a lot of its higher woodland.

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Here you can see the effect of the fungus, though of course many other fungal organisms will be benefitting from the decay caused by the disease. The rot has moved from the outside in through what are the softer layers of waste wood. Had the fungus weakened two thirds of the overall mass, the tree would probably have fallen down. Lots of people walk under these trees, so that’s why they have to be pushed before the wind shoves them.

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I have been exchanging emails with a fellow macro photographer this week who has been spending hours looking for slime moulds. One day this week he looked for four hours and found nothing. I was lucky enough to walk straight outdoors for a few minutes and happened upon this epic spread on the tree above:

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No, slime moulds aren’t fungi, they’re not even moulds, which are another kind of fungus. I still don’t have the slime mould ID book so any help is welcome.

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The thing that amazed me about these slimeys was that you could barely see them, even when I knew they were there. They camouflaged so well with the glowering winter light. The photos here have been taken with a flash.

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I could have spent all day with this spread but only had an hour and my small camera. Up close they look like little black kalamata olives. Nom, nom and nom. Though inedible.

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The land managers had left lots of standing dead trees which is excellent. There is some epic misinformation going around about deadwood in woodlands and their contributions to forest fires. It’s guff aimed to misinform people, appeal to people’s fears (what a surprise) and promote the destruction of these habitats. In Britain our native woods of oak, beech and so on, are far too wet to ever burn like a heath.

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The crevices seen above are the perfect places to find slime moulds in cold weather. This is because they provide microclimates and protection from the elements.

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Here I found some old stalkballs which are fungi (or maybe a species of slime mould, am not quite sure), plus the real life of the party:

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DISCO. I’m not sure which species of disco the blue cup fungi are, but the orange fruiting body is definitely a slime mould. They were few and I couldn’t get a good angle on them.

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Thankfully this blue disco brought the party on Fungi Friday.

Please do share your finds this week in the comments below. Also here are some fungi things of interest this week.

Thanks for reading.

First mushrooms appeared earlier than originally thought

More mushrooms

 

 

 

 

 

Photography: Ash tree

Daniel GreenwoodLeave a comment

Ash coppice, North Downs, October 2015-1

A coppiced ash tree along the North Downs Way near Oxted, October 2015. Coppicing is the act of cutting a tree at its base to harvest wood and encourage more growth in the following years. This ash is now grazing land and is likely to be left over from formerly coppiced ancient woodland, tracts of which are still found along the edges of the field. The tree is full of holes and crevices for fungi and invertebrates but must be feeling the pressure of the hoofs of grazing livestock on the ground around it.

See more in my North Downs diary

Woodland Diary: Sycamore coppicing

Daniel Greenwood13 Comments
Holly blue

This was the first workday for the Friends of One Tree Hill (FrOTH). We coppiced 10 sycamore (Acer pseudoplatanus) trees and cut back the bramble (Rubus frusticosus) which is so dominant on the site.

In the case of sycamore we were felling trees of some thirty-feet or more in height that were competing with the sessile oak trees (Quercus patraea). These oaks are regenerating on the slope of the south-facing hill and are slow growers compared to the highly successful sycamore. We felled the trees also to allow light in and let the herb layer regenerate. This is a technique which helps insects and butterflies in particular.

PlantLife reports that by 2002 97% of British broadleaf woodland had become high forest. In 1951 that figure was at 51%. This means that most of our woodland is dark and overgrown generally because humans have stopped relying on woodland as a resource for firewood, furniture, grazing of livestock and so on. One of the great misconceptions about woodland is that felling a tree is somehow a bad thing when, on the contrary, wildlife flourishes when trees are cut down in moderation and sunlight can get in to bring life to the woodland floor.

One ancient tradition which has gone out of fashion is the art of coppicing. This is a process of cutting a tree down to its base, generally of hazel (Corylus avellana) or ash (Fraxinus excelsior), which means that the tree shoots new, straight growths. These poles were used for a variety of things, often as fencing.

Sycamore is not a typical coppice tree, but the stumps we cut down to in One Tree Hill will shoot similar growths in the spring and summer. In the meantime the wood we have cut will be used either to make log piles for beetles and other bugs to inhabit, otherwise the material will be used to make handrails or dead hedges in the wood.

The point of managing a wood in this way is to show that using the material, i.e. trees, is not a negative thing and can boost wildlife in the short term. The Pearl-bordered fritillary (Boloria euphrosyne) is one butterfly which saw a decline in numbers after the tradition of coppicing declined in the 20th century after we began to rely on gas to heat our homes and use wood imported from overseas. You can see that a tree has been coppiced if you spot thin shoots and the hairy green leaves of a hazel. 

This technique is renowned for its benefits for wildflowers such as wild primrose (Primula vulgaris) and bluebells (Hyacinthoides non-scripta) which can burst into life when the coppice is cut. These are plants indicative of ancient woodland and seeing as One Tree Hill is located in the area which was once part of London’s Great North Wood, we are hoping that some plants, in certain areas, could reappear one day, not to mention the wildlife which feeds from them. Sydenham Hill & Dulwich Woods and Dulwich Upper Wood are two fragments of the Great North Wood which have ancient woodland flora growing there, and have done for thousands of years. Perhaps one day One Tree Hill can be in a similar vein of health.