Year: 2019

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A Fresh Spin on Bernards Heath, Sandridge Road Wastes and Beech Bottom Dyke

Many people will have noticed that new boards have appeared describing the Heath and Sandridge Road Wastes. The old Bernards Heath boards have been updated and smart new metal frames used instead of wood frames which rotted out. These are formally described as interpretation boards, and they provide a concise account of historical events and industries which once existed on the Heath. Click here for a larger version of the Bernards Heath interpretation boards.

Three boards describe Bernards Heath and three Sandridge Road Wastes (the latter being green areas alongside Sandridge Road).  Beech Bottom Dyke is a huge ditch 1 mile long partially hidden behind trees alongside Beech Road and Firbank Road 7 – 10. The map below shows where boards are located.

Boards 1-3 Bernards Heath, 4-6 Sandridge Road Wastes and 7-10 Beech Bottom Dyke. board 8, is close to the bank of the ditch and approached by a narrow cut though between the houses. Photo: Google maps

Click here for a larger version of Sandridge Road Wastes. There is a small notice board alongside board 6 which is dated 1955 pointing out that parking is not allowed on the Wastes.

Beech Bottom Dyke has four interpretation boards (7-10). The Friends of Bernards Heath have done much (see here , here and here) to make paths alongside and at the bottom of the ditch more accessible.

Click here for a bigger version of the board.

Many thanks to members of the Friends of Bernards Heath, especially RM and PB for their work on the preparation of artwork and content. The Friends of Bernards Heath paid for the artwork and the St Albans City Council the metal boards and their installation.

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New Depression appears on the Lower Field

The depression in closeup is about 2 m wide and 0.5 m deep.

This small depression has appeared on the Lower Field and has been cordoned off. The Fontmell Close sinkhole was probably only 200 m away, although in this case it may be a consequence of the rubbish that was buried in the area.

Depression getting deeper and exclusion zone much extended
The Lower Field, showing the location of the depression. The diagonal mark across the field is the result of the temporary access route used in the Fontmell Close incident.

The field was surveyed in detail in 2015 since it is in the area covered by old clay pits and was the site of a rubbish tip. The company Carter Jonas was involved in the survey and is now in the process of reviewing the ground condition reports for the site.

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Global Families Day

Global Families day at Bernards Heath Infant and Nursery School

Bernards Heath Infant and Nursery School celebrated Global Families Day on November 14th with Peter Burley and Alan MacKnight representing the Friends of Bernards Heath. They brought along with some very tasty berry jam (photo inset) using fruit foraged from the Heath. It was a good opportunity to publicise the Action Day on the 17th November (see post above).

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November Action Day 2017

Thank you everybody who helped with our Action Day on November 17th 2019

A lovely sunny but cold November Action day attracted a good number of helpers, who:

1 and 2 Collected litter and other rubbish – including a sleeping bag

3 cleared a section of hedge in Heath Farm Lane

4 cleared a substantial fallen branch close to Luton (Spinney) Lane.

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Felling the Big Fella Part II

The Big Fella is not so easily put down

The year is now October 2020 and the stump is sprouting again. There’s life in the Big Fella still.

The reading of the rings

Starting from outside, the red-brown bark surrounds yellow sapwood with brown heartwood in the middle. The bark brings the leaves’ products of photosynthesis down to build a new layer of the sapwood each year while the sapwood conducts water upwards from the roots to the whole tree canopy. Heartwood is dead sapwood and only contributes strength to the trunk and branches. The proportions are different in branches (below).

It was clear from the trunk that, in the past, many branches had been trimmed off.

The bark started to heal over the stumps, but before this was complete, the wood had rotted. Bark can only lay down new wood on a sound surface. Poplar is not rated as a ‘durable’ wood, meaning that dead wood does not resist decay well.

Going back to the second picture, on the left is a branch stump which successfully healed over. The blackened cut surface was partially exposed by a felling cut. In contrast, on the right is a pocket of rot which started when a branch was cut off. It eventually closed over, but never quite healed properly, as can be seen (below). A slight ‘witness’ occurs to this day in the bark surface, although, without seeing the cut stump, it would not be apparent.

Oh, you want to know how old the tree was? The picture (below) shows the rings marked (very faint) in 10’s

They add up to 110, give or take a few. So the tree started life about 1910. The two healed-over branches were cut some 50 years ago, around the time that the old fire station was built and possibly connected with clearing low-growing vegetation in the vicinity of the access road.

Lastly, a piece of branch from up in the tree canopy below shows some really good growths of moss and lichens (pronounced litch-ens or like-ens). Lichens are combinations of a fungus and an algae living as one organism.

On the left is of the north-facing and damper side and on the right, the south-facing and drier side.

Roger Miles, Heath Tree Warden

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Felled Beech Tree just off Harpenden Road

This young Beech tree was felled just off Harpenden Road on or around 29th July. We have been planting trees on the Heath over the winter, so it is disheartening when this happens. Do you know anything about it? – if so, contact FoBH chairman by clicking FoBH Mail in the right-hand column.

On the left above the tree as it was and on the right the location. The tree was cleanly sawn off with a handsaw and left as shown.

Images from Google Street View dated April 2019 and Google maps.