Kennington Memorial Field - Saturday, 19 October 2024

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Blog by Sally.  Photos by Ursula and Sally

Once again, we were blessed by dry weather on Saturday for our session at Kennington Memorial Field, which is owned and managed by Oxford Preservation Trust.  This is an old grassland festooned with ant hills and is traditionally grazed by cattle in the spring and autumn.  

We assembled in the car park by the playing field and made our way through the gate to the Field as Adrian, our leader for the session, led us to a suitable spot to make our camp near a large bramble thicket which we had been asked to remove using scythes, loppers, saws and the tree popper for small blackthorn trees.  It was great to welcome back the newlyweds, Helen and Henry, who have had a very busy year, and Olivia, who has been away doing a course and had returned for a week.

Three scythers started cutting back the wild rambling thicket of bramble, blackthorn and rose, which made for brutal scything, whilst the other 11 Green Gymmers attacked the scrub in a different patch and by break time, we had managed to make a considerable inroad and had started to discover hidden ant hills that had been smothered by bramble which, if left unchecked, would end up taking over the whole field.  We spotted a number of different mushrooms following the recent rains.

Helen and Henry had very kindly brought us some cakes similar to what they had served at their wedding so that we could share in their bliss at break time.  Suitably fortified and refreshed, we set back to work making sure that we were able to clear away the cut material that had amassed in various piles.  We are looking forward to returning to the site to finish the job at a later stage.  This type of ancient grassland with ant hills is increasingly becoming rare so it is important to preserve it.

Welcome board!

The thicket

Susan means business

Henry, Helen and Kevin having heaps of fun

The attack

Processing the cut material for ease of removing

Rosie scything the bramble thicket

Roger on a tug of war

The happy couple with their lovely cakes

A very welcome break!

One of the many types of fungi 

Adrian tackling the root of the problem - 
in this case removing the roots of a blackthorn

Graham on clearing duty

Rosie and Helen clearing up

All hands on deck

Looking into the thicket

Looking out showing part of the area we had cleared

It's packing up time!

The gap from the rose bush to the thicket is much bigger now

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