Holmsley enclosure

 

A pocket of pine burst through a carpet of sedges and grasses within Holmsley enclosure, their adjacent deciduous stands couldn’t be more different in nature. As with many of the forests enclosures Holmsley is comprised of blocks of deciduous and coniferous stands, a mix which allows for the creation of wonderful niche environments.

Shappen Bottom

Shappen Bottom. A finger of bog and carr filling a shallow valley off Holmsley Bog, with Slap Wood in the distance. 

Lodge Hill

 

Morning sun through Lodge Hill wood, Holmsley enclosure.

Avon Water

A straightened section of Avon Water near it's source on Stony Moors.

Frying tonight

Fry basking in the warm spring sun in one of the head water rivulettes of Avon Water in Holmsley enclosure. I think they're Brown/Sea Trout (Salmo trutta) fry, don't hold to that though. These fish born in the headwaters of small streams have an interesting life journey, some remain in the streams of their birth, others venture out into the sea where they morph into Sea Trout, returning to their stream of birth to spawn and die. Bonus point if you get the title reference 'frying tonight'.

Bomb store track

 

In the hollow of Magpie Bottom the last remaining section of the Second World War concrete track way which ran between the Bomb Store at the Corner of Holmsley Enclosure and the dispersal pans on Plain Heath. The majority of the track way has had it's concrete surface grubbed up, now just bare gravel. I think this section only survived due to the boggy nature of the bottom here, the removal of the concrete would've rendered the track impassable.

Rinse and repeat

 

The volume and force of the water coming off the plains at times is evident in the erosion it's causing as it races to join the forests' rivers. I've seen dozens of incidences like the damage above, where rushing water has scoured away sections of the gravel forestry track. Whilst many of the forests' green tracks are hardly navigable having become so sodden, easily churned. The forest makes for interesting walking.

RAF Holmsley South

 

At the corner of Holmsley enclosure, easy to overlook as you pass, are these unassuming earthwork features which were once the site of serious and dangerous work in the pursuit of victory; they're all that remains of RAF Holmsley Souths' bomb store. Bomb store sounds quite straight forward, but there was more to it than that, the bombs required preparing for use and strict procedures needed following. The bombs went on a journey. The photo above is of one of the two main storage areas that housed the bodies and separately the tail units of the bombs which run at 90 degrees around the corner of Holmsley enclosure. From here a trackway along which the bomb trains ran, travelling back and forth between store and planes parked on the dispersals. By the side of the trackway were a series of stations, brick built loading bays, smoke bomb and small bomb stores, component stores and finally the fusing point, the last stop before the bomb ready store where prepared bombs waited to be taken to the planes; all of these sites had associated trackways, nissen huts, blast walls and such like. Sadly as with other Second World War airfields in the forest, and short-sightedly in my opinion, the physical remains of RAF Holmsley South were viewed as having no historic/archaeological value and subsequently over the years, beyond a short section of Runway, some perimeter track and some dispersal pads,  all have been destroyed. Criminal really.

Drain

 

Although there's been some restoration to sections of the forests' streams and drains to their pre-Victorian watercourses, they're the anomalies rather than the rule. The straight forestry drains remain the rule. Though the restored sections have been cleverly selected to mean that many of the remaining drains cease to function as designed, backing up and flooding out into their surrounding woodland, where they hold the waters back as desired. They're certainly holding plenty of water at the moment as it remains wet out. This morning was a rainy walk again. There seems a sort of rhythm to our current weather, a couple of days rain and grey, followed by a dry and sunny day.