Crabbett's Marsh

[dom]

https://www.edp24.co.uk/news/24159862.crabbetts-marsh-woodland-norfolk-broads-protected/

Suspect this one will get heated and lead to BA expending large amounts of resources defending actions yet again.

[ExSurveyor]

24 minutes ago, dom said:

https://www.edp24.co.uk/news/24159862.crabbetts-marsh-woodland-norfolk-broads-protected/

Suspect this one will get heated and lead to BA expending large amounts of resources defending actions yet again.

Hopefully, if they need to spend money it comes from the planning budget.

[dom]

I can't believe there's any money left in the planning budget with 8-9 staff, the farce at Irstead, the other TPO at Ludham, etc.

 

[SwanR]

We did see someone appearing to be helping themselves to logs around Mousehold Heath on the outskirts of Norwich when we drove past at the weekend. It does happen. 

[dom]

I've just noticed the comments on the article, including one about plots being auctioned to unsuspecting buyers.

The last auction was actually far more recent - maybe a month or two ago. It's been an ongoing issue for quite a number of years - probably decades now. I don't know why the BA are bothering. I'm all in favour of protecting historic landscapes, but it's a stinking bit of stagnant bog, full of mosquitoes. It'd be no great loss to allow mooring to be dredged and cleared, with a limit set to stop any more extensive development. It's not like it's the only bit of "wet woodland" in the vicinity. It runs right down to the entrance to Bewiderwood, continues on the other side right through to Long Lane, as well as through to Burntfen Broad.

It just seems like a classic case of BA on a power trip. The same BA who presumably didn't see fit to protect all the beautiful old trees around the Ferry Inn, which gave the place far more character than its current barren state.

I suspect there may well be quite a few nice warm fires in Horning next winter...

[marshman]

Were not "those beautiful old trees" just willows?

[dom]

Definitely not willows. They had fairly substantial trunks and actually look a bit like oaks in some pictures. I tend to think oak wouldn't manage to stay upright on that type of land, but I think there are a couple on Horning green, so may be a possibility.

[YnysMon]

1 hour ago, dom said:

Definitely not willows. They had fairly substantial trunks and actually look a bit like oaks in some pictures. I tend to think oak wouldn't manage to stay upright on that type of land, but I think there are a couple on Horning green, so may be a possibility.

Isn’t there a species called water oak? 

[dom]

11 hours ago, YnysMon said:

Isn’t there a species called water oak? 

It appears there is, but I don't think they'd have been them. The leaves appear to be quite shiny and unusually shaped, which I'm sure I'd have remembered.

[grendel]

I thought water oak was a southern states of american species.

[TheQ]

On old maps it shows a route through to the Bure from the broad, the current  dyke was there as well.  if you look at the photo, just to the right of the words River Bure. There's a dyke running mostly North from the river It came out there. A lot of Crabbetts marsh was water 150 years ago.

[dom]

14 minutes ago, TheQ said:

On old maps it shows a route through to the Bure from the broad, the current  dyke was there as well.  if you look at the photo, just to the right of the words River Bure. There's a dyke running mostly North from the river It came out there. A lot of Crabbetts marsh was water 150 years ago.

It's really interesting, if you look at the 1885 map, Hoveton Hall lake connects all the way though to Burntfen Broad. It looks like that would have connected to either Hoveton Little Broad or Crabbet's Marsh at one time. Crabbet's Marsh almost looks like Crabbet's Broad back then!

[YnysMon]

On 05/03/2024 at 13:37, grendel said:

I thought water oak was a southern states of american species.

Yes, I think you’re right, but I’m sure I’ve seen oaks growing in marshy places/Carr woodland on the Broads. 

[kpnut]

Plenty of oaks at Fairhaven water gardens. 

Oak will be the climax species of alder carr, but obviously once it’s dried out. 
There is a species called Pin Oak that likes wet ground. I think it’s nickname is swamp oak. Not native to the UK but that doesn’t mean they couldn’t have been planted. 

[Wussername]

1 hour ago, kpnut said:

Plenty of oaks at Fairhaven water gardens. 

Oak will be the climax species of alder carr, but obviously once it’s dried out. 
There is a species called Pin Oak that likes wet ground. I think it’s nickname is swamp oak. Not native to the UK but that doesn’t mean they couldn’t have been planted. 

Trees

BY JOYCE KILMER

I think that I shall never see

A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest

Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,

And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in Summer wear

A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;

Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,

But only God can make a tree.

Paul Robeson recorded a song of this poem. There is an oak, a very old majestic oak at Fairhaven that reminds me of this this very poem and song.

[grendel]

I have heard of bog oak too.

[kpnut]

7 hours ago, Wussername said:

Trees

BY JOYCE KILMER

That was a very lovely thing to read on waking up this morning. 
Thankyou Andrew

[kpnut]

2 hours ago, grendel said:

have heard of bog oak too.

I think bog oak might describe petrified wood, as in fossilised in anaerobic conditions in a bog for instance. 

[Smoggy]

3 hours ago, grendel said:

I have heard of bog oak too.

My old man used to do agricultural tyre repairs around the cambs. fens and used to get lots of bog oak for the fire, it it just regular oaks that have been under the peat for years (possibly lots of thousands of years) and effectively come up to the surface, once the farmer hits them with a plough or similar they have to dig them out, once dried it's very definately still wood and makes great firewood but gives the chimney sweep a hard time as the absorbed peat is sooty as hell.

The village always smelt of it in winter, a very welcoming smell.

I don't think they actually rise, I think it's the peat shrinks as it dries and the microbes in it come alive and consume it and the ground level drops to meet them, near whittlesey mere there is a post that was sunk till it hit hard ground in the victorian times, it is now high and dry with it's base on a plinth and another sunk beside it to show how much the ground has dropped, it's not a short post! Peat bog needs to stay waterlogged or it disappears.

[dom]

3 hours ago, Smoggy said:

My old man used to do agricultural tyre repairs around the cambs. fens and used to get lots of bog oak for the fire, it it just regular oaks that have been under the peat for years (possibly lots of thousands of years) and effectively come up to the surface, once the farmer hits them with a plough or similar they have to dig them out,

My route to work used to take me across the Fens by Pope's Corner, where the Cam and Old West meet. The farm there used to be constantly pulling preserved trees out of the peat soil there. They're generally something like 2,500 to 5,000 years old, sometimes older. There's a bit of a burgeoning trade in furniture and artworks made from it.

3 hours ago, Smoggy said:

near whittlesey mere there is a post that was sunk till it hit hard ground in the victorian times, it is now high and dry with it's base on a plinth and another sunk beside it to show how much the ground has dropped, it's not a short post!

The original cast iron post (supposedly from Crystal Palace) is currently about 4m above ground level.

[Smoggy]

59 minutes ago, dom said:

They're generally something like 2,500 to 5,000 years old,

So they're out of warranty then?

[FairTmiddlin]

2 hours ago, Smoggy said:

So they're out of warranty then?

What No Lifetime Warranty?