As you drive up the Road to High Wych from High Wych corner you will notice that the road splits into two carriageways. The reason this happened at a time when the road was being widened and improved was that there is a specimen oak tree in the middle of the elongated island that was created. The tree is a Lucombe Oak. This was not bred by Thomas Rivers but would have been in his extended garden at one time. The rather poor picture below shows the road dividing and the large oak in the middle distance. The Lucombe Oak was bred by William Lucombe in his Exeter nursery in 1720. He noticed that other oak trees such as the Turkey Oak naturally hybridised and he tried crossing the Cork Oak Quercus suber with Quercus serris. The result was a fertile hybrid although the acorns do not breed true. Most of the verified propagation has been done by grafting, although this is not apparent in the Rivers tree. The bark has some of the furrowed characteristics of the Cork Oak. The lea...
The idea of Nature Walks around Sawbridgeworth Parish is to make people aware of the wonderful wildlife resource we have locally and within walking distance. Each route is shown in a red line on an Ordnance Survey map. Theoretically, all start and finish at the Fair Green but you can of course drop in at any point. Rather then being told what to look for, I have just put pointers in along the route because I want people to look for themselves and make their own discoveries! This will mean much more to everyone! They are not intended as route marches so take your time and stop and look! All the routes follow Footpaths but inevitably, there are places where the walks have to cross roads. Do please take extreme care and follow all the safety guidelines to avoid accidents. County Wildlife sites are marked CWS and a code number. Walk 11. This Walk takes you from the Fair Green down to the river and then over the station. From this point turn left along the...
On Saturday 13th of November 2021 a small group of Citizen Scientists visited the Rivers Orchard area site to survey lichens as indicators of air quality. Small oak trees with horizontal branches were chosen and lichens identified using the Field Studies Council publications. A bleach test was carried out to help with some of the identifications. All the trees had a quite remarkable lichen flora, in some cases there with six species present on one branch. All the lichens identified are Nitrogen Dioxide and Acid tolerant which tells us that the air quality in the is area is quite low. Pictures from GL.
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