Mid Sussex Times January 15 1982

A stroll across the Spinning Field

NEW ENGLAND WOOD, the beauty spot on the borders of Cuckfield, has been preserved for all time as a nature reserve by the dedicated work of the Beech Farm Preservation Society, the Cuckfield Society and other residents of the community.

It will provide the people of Cuckfield and residents from much wider area of Mid Sussex with a unique opportunity for pleasure walks, study and observation of flora and fauna.

One man has already seized the chance and readers of the bid Sussex times will be able to benefit from his work.

He is Mr Stan Hallett, who lives near the wood and visited regularly throughout 1981. He has produced a fifty four thousand word diary detailing his observations, his views and his ideas for the future management of this tremendous communal asset.

Throughout the forthcoming months we shall publish instalments from that diary.

They should be of great interest to our readers and should help those who walk through the reserve to identify what they see and gain the maximum enjoyment and knowledge from their outings.

Mr Hallett was for many years assistant chief accountant with the Pearl Insurance Company Ltd; he is a keen and experienced student of natural history. He has already won a major award for a diary he kept during 1980 of life in a wood a Balcombe.

In the beginning....

Introducing his diary, Mr Hallett writes:

'It was during 1980 that an appeal was launched by the Cuckfield Society to purchase New England Wood as part of a scheme for the protection of the environment around Cuckfield from undesirable usages, following Beech Farm coming on the market for sale.

At the close of year, the appeal target of £15,000 had almost been achieved and the legal formalities were in hand to vest the parcel of land in trustees, drawn from all walks of Cuckfield life, with appropriate protective conditions.

At this stage, I decided that I would visit the wood regularly during 1981 and record my observations in diary form illustrated with photographs.

New England Wood, being an area of approximately 28 acres bounded by farmland, formed part of the original Sergison estate prior to its sale in 1969. The wood was left for sometime to Major Waring and became known as ‘Major Waring’s shoot’, until the spread of myxomatosis virtually wiped out the rabbit population. His dog is buried in the wood and a memorial stone records this fact: "To dear old Taffy, beloved pal of the Waring family, born 1937, died 18th of May 1948".

There is every indication of this wood having been left undisturbed with the exception of the coppice, which is mainly hazel and much neglected.

The wood is an interesting one combining many different soil conditions varying from comparatively dry to very damp boggy areas, with high and low levels affecting the temperature and humidity. It has the advantage of a small stream and gullies running through it, giving ghyll conditions with all the attendant vegetation.

There are some fine old trees, which must be the hosts of many invertebrates entirely dependent on such tree species and a number of predators. Many dead trees and branches remain, that's providing habitats not found elsewhere in the wood.

The woodland floor contains much natural litter, thus playing its part in the breakdown of the vegetation and enrichment of the soil.

The composition of the wood and the little disturbance it appears to have experience becomes more apparent as observations proceed and its hidden treasures are revealed. I am sure that the acquisition of this wood will prove to be of considerable ecological interest as well as being one of environmental preservation.

I hope that wise counsels will prevail in devising the right management for it, with particular stress on natural regeneration and the encouragement of flora.

Expert advice is available and essential, a fact which I know is well recognised, but it will be interesting to follow the seasonal changes in the wood which may well appeal to many.'

JANUARY

New Year's Day and what better day to visit the word for the commencement of an illustrated diary.

The morning was bright and sunny as I took the footpath across ‘The Spinning Field’. The view over Cuckfield Park to the Downs was beautiful and the horse chestnut trees – Aesculus hippocastanum – were developing their sticky buds. The dark grey brown bark like long plates and the spreading nature of their branches serve to remind me how much these splendid trees have added to the landscape. They were planted extensively in parkland and on village greens. How much we should treasure this heritage and plant and preserve for the future.

I continued downhill and surveyed the wood which lay before me and which will be visited regularly by me during the year. On reaching the stile by the stream I paused and looked at the shadows being cast by the many and varied shapes of the trees. At this time of the year, the shapely beauty of trees can be appreciated to the full and it is interesting to recognise each type by its shape, bark and bud formation.

Everything in nature has its attraction and today I found myself reflecting on the growth of algae, mainly on the north side of trees. This green film is made so of millions of individual microscopic primitive plants. The single cell algae plays its part in the growth of lichens, which are no one individual plant but are a combination of a fungus with plants from the algae group. The fungus part fixes the plant to a suitable surface and collects the moisture, thus ensuring the growth of the algae. It also protects the algae and is responsible for determining the ultimate shape of the lichen. The relationship between fungi and algae is not one-sided, for algae contains chlorophyll and by photosynthesis sugars are manufactured on which the fungi feeds. Lichens are very sensitive to atmosphere pollution. They are essentially dependent on clean air and light, having no roots and absorbing water and nutrient gases through their upper surfaces. They basically divide into three main kinds –

Fruticose – the plant body (thallus) is erect, or pendant, attached at the base. Foliose – leaf like and procumbent (lying forward) usually attached by the lower surface;

and Crustose – having a crust like thallus, more or less inseparable from the sub stratum.

The woodland floor reveals mosses looking at their best, bright and green. They are very varied, the species varying according to habitat. They are indeed primitive, but fulfil a very useful role, growing, sometimes on the poorest of soil or where no soil exists. A rotation of dying older mosses and fresh mosses growing to replace them builds up a layer of nutritious mould in which seeds germinate and produce fruitful ground.

Mosses cannot be mentioned without reference to liverworts, since botanically they are both known as bryophytes. They reproduce by spores. Any bryophyte not differentiated into stem and leaf is a liverwort. If deeply lobed or with segmented leaves or toothed it is a liverwort. If it has a midrib to its leaf it is a moss, but all mosses do not have a midrib.

Liverworts are either flat lobed structures or have small leaves in rows of three. They have similar life-cycle to mosses. The capsules differ from moss capsules by breaking into four flaps, releasing the ripe spores.

I decided to follow the stream as I knew that this would reveal much of interest. Great pendulous sedge – Carex Pendular – was immediately visible; it is one of our tallest sedges, with stout leafy triangular stems. The brownish terminal spikelet is male and the three or four drooping brownish green spikelets are female.

On a beech tree, a cluster of ‘Beech tuft’ or Oudemansiella mucida – shining white and covered with a sticky fluid, looked attractive as the sun shone through the caps and revealed the widely spaced and broad gills together with the large rings on the stripes. This is really late summer and autumn fungus.

The broad branch, dark green plants of the liverwort – Marchantiophyta - which carry clusters of vegetative propagation structures in complete cups and lunularia cruciata with its surface covered with pores and gemmae in clusters, half surrounded by a crescent shaped flap called a gemma cup, were observed in gullies leading down to the stream. (To be continued)