Here is a short piece I wrote after a visit to the Lamb Garden in Totnes on March 9th together with a poem by Thomas Hardy.
It’s that time of year when I spend more time than I should peering at patches of lungwort. The wild variety (Pulmonaria officinalis) has been flowering for several weeks here in Devon and now has a mixture of pinkish-red and purplish-blue trumpet-shaped flowers above fleshy, white-spotted green leaves. The weather has kept most insects away but this morning, there is a hint of warmth in the air and finally, I see what I have been anticipating.
It’s one of the first bees to emerge each year, and I get that first time thrill again. I don’t see it arrive but suddenly it’s there hovering by the lungwort, hanging in the air as if working out which flower to sample. As it hovers, I notice the mostly buff-haired abdomen and thorax, also the pale yellow mask-like face and is that the tongue hanging in readiness? This chunky insect might be mistaken for a bumblebee but is a very fresh male hairy-footed flower bee (Anthophora plumipes), usually the first solitary bee species to appear in Totnes each spring.
Having chosen a flower, he settles down to feed, pushing his head in deeply to access nectar. His legs are splayed out gripping either side of the corolla, displaying the silky hairs that decorate them, celebrated in his common name. He doesn’t stay long, darting to another flower with a brief hover in between, buzzing loudly.
Lungwort flowers start out red and acquire the blue colour as they age. Red flowers contain more nectar than blue and the Anthophora feed preferentially from these red, higher forage flowers. This colour code means they don’t waste time visiting low-nectar blooms and may visit several plants looking for high nectar flowers, increasing the chance of cross pollination.
The male then notices me and hovers, buzzing loudly and aggressively in my direction before departing in a huff. Other males appear and occasionally two find themselves together on the flowers. This also doesn’t go down well and they depart, carving circles in the air around one another.
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I wanted to include a poem to go with these spring observations so here is Thomas Hardy meditating on the topic in “The Year’s Awakening” .
For my next Lockdown Nature Walk (taken on February 10th 2021), I went up Fishchowter’s Lane, an ancient track on the southern side of Totnes. It was a very cold, grey day but I found much that was encouraging and some that wasn’t. After my account of the walk, I have included a poem that feels relevant, “A Backward Spring” by Thomas Hardy.
An open part of Fishchowter’s Lane showing the ferns and wall pennywort growing along the soil banks
A jumble of bright green, grass-like leaves spills along a roadside wall near the beginning of Fishchowter’s Lane on the southern edge of Totnes. This is three-cornered garlic and despite the bitter easterly wind, a flower stem has dared to appear among the leaves. Most of the flowers on the stem are still swathed in a pale papery bract but one has escaped, snowy white with a hint of a pale green stripe. For a moment, this fragile flower holds my hope that spring, when it arrives, might lighten this lockdown making it easier to bear.
I begin to walk up the lane past houses and a former quarry, now a dark, fern-fringed grotto occasionally used by a wood worker. Trees grow within the quarry and a group of small birds fusses in the leafless branches. One of these trees, a hazel, drapes over my path casting a mist of yellow catkins that shimmers in the wind.
The lane rises gently along the side of a grassy valley as it enters open countryside and I begin to be aware of a stream rushing along the valley bottom a little way below. I am used to mud on this path but with the recent spell of cold weather, it has frozen hard with reminders of that morning’s snow caught in crevices. At first the lane feels open with views across nearby fields in the valley but soon the character changes. Trees and scrub growing in the path-side soil banks now cover the track giving it a more enclosed, sheltered feel. By late spring, fresh leaves will have created a mysterious green tunnel here but today some light still gets through. With the overcast conditions, though, this is a poor flat light and everything feels rather gloomy.
Despite this, the enclosed track has a feeling of lush green growth. Ferns and wall pennywort cover large areas of the soil banks and have yet to be touched by the cold weather. Shiny arrow head-shaped leaves push up through the soil on the banks and by the path side, some with prominent black spots. These are the leaves of Lords and Ladies whose beacons of orange-red berries will light up the green tunnel in late summer. Groups of pointed leaves like small spears, some spattered with mud are also emerging through the hard soil along the side of the path. Breaking a piece of leaf releases a sharp oniony smell transporting me forwards to a time when these starry-flowered ramsons will capture the edges of the track. Then further along, green mats of oval wavy-edged leaves cover the bank. This is opposite-leaved golden saxifrage an evergreen, damp and shade-loving plant. A few yellow flower stems are already showing, bringing hints of sunshine to the dark track.
The path continues to climb slowly, sometimes enclosed by trees, sometimes more open. A stream running off a steeply sloping field crosses the lane to join the water in the valley and I pass an organic smallholding before the lane rises again to reach a junction where another path crosses at right angles. The junction is set in a peaceful tree-lined glade where water cascades from fields across rocks and old tree stumps before entering a culvert to hurry downhill towards the valley stream. I stand there for a while listening to the ebb and flow of the watery sounds and I try to imagine the people that have walked this way over the years. I also reflect on how, if you walk a path regularly, it can insinuate itself into your life.
Fishchowter’s Lane leaves the tree-lined glade to head steeply upwards across the side of a rising hillside. The path is enclosed by scrub and mature trees and feels rather bleak today. As I climb, the noise of the wind threading through the trees begins to dominate and apart from wall pennywort growing on the soil banks there is little to see except for a few green spikes that may be bluebells. In compensation, the views to the north become increasingly spectacular, across the valley below, to the town of Totnes and further on to the Dartmoor hills.
The lane climbs about 75metres from the watery glade in a short distance so I am relieved when the track levels out. This part of Fishchowter’s Lane is open and airy in spring and summer, its high hedges richly embroidered with wildflowers. Today, though, the plants growing along the banks look damaged. Foxgloves and wall pennywort show this most with their leaves drooping uncharacteristically. I am puzzled by this at first but decide that the recent high winds from the east combined with persistent low temperatures have damaged the lush leaves of plants that grew well in the earlier mild weather. It looks alarming and although it may set back these plants, they will recover and regrow so I press on to the next junction where I turn left along Bowden Lane.
This is a well-used farm track, scarred with deep muddy ruts glinting with shards of ice. It’s another mass of growth in the warmer seasons, abounding with flowers and insects but today it looks apocalyptic. The farmer appears to have decided to rein in the vegetation, flailing the hedge and plants growing there, spreading the cuttings across the high banks that line the lane. A thick brown layer of coarse fragments of wood and leaves covers both sides smothering any new growth, so that the lane looks dead. I don’t hang around here, there is nothing to see, the wind is bitter and a little snow is now falling. The lane ends at a four-way junction and I walk on to the minor road which allows me to descend along Totnes Down Hill. Primroses with their yellow flowers are showing well in the high banks but it is very exposed with more evidence of wind damage.
So, what about my earlier hopes for the arrival of spring? With all this natural and unnatural destruction, all this loss, I can’t help but feel downcast but then I come across a splash of snowdrops growing by the side of the road. As I look at the delicate green markings on these flowers, a great tit sings a joyful “teacher, teacher” from a nearby tree and then a robin appears. Not wishing to be left out, the bird begins to speak to me.
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A Backward Spring by Thomas Hardy
The trees are afraid to put forth buds, And there is timidity in the grass; The plots lie gray where gouged by spuds, And whether next week will pass Free of sly sour winds is the fret of each bush Of barberry waiting to bloom.
Yet the snowdrop’s face betrays no gloom, And the primrose pants in its heedless push, Though the myrtle asks if it’s worth the fight This year with frost and rime To venture one more time On delicate leaves and buttons of white From the selfsame bough as at last year’s prime, And never to ruminate on or remember What happened to it in mid-December.
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Leaves of Lords and Ladies
Green spears of ramsons coming through the hard soil at the path edge
Opposite leaved golden saxifrage showing the leaves and some flower stems with the bright yellow stamens in groups of eight
The view from the high point across the valley to Totnes and Dartmoor
Wall pennywort showing frost and wind damage, also some remnants of snow
Foxglove showing frost and wind damage
View along Bowden Lane with icy, muddy ruts and the banks, flailed and cut
Back in June, I went on a walk across some flower-rich chalk grassland in west Dorset (a county in the south west of the UK). The article below describes the walk and was published in the September edition of the Marshwood Vale Magazine. It is a very “Dorset” article and some readers may not be familiar with a few of the allusions. So, the Cerne Giant (or the Rude Man of Cerne) is a massive figure carved in the grass upon a chalk hillside above the village of Cerne Abbas. Gabriel Oak is a sheep farmer who features strongly in Thomas Hardy’s novel “Far from the Madding Crowd”, immortalised, for me, in the 1967 film starring Alan Bates, Julie Christie, Terence Stamp and Peter Finch. Gabriel Oak keeps his sheep on a chalk grassland hillside. A “coombe” is a local name for a valley.
Some of the species found on the chalk grassland including wild thyme (purple), black medic (yellow) and salad burnet (dry brown).
Chalk grassland with its colourful wildflowers and multitude of insects was once a common sight in a Dorset summer. It is the landscape defended by the Cerne Giant and where, in Far from the Madding Crowd, we first meet sheep farmer Gabriel Oak. In the 20th century, however, much of Dorset’s chalk grassland disappeared following changes in farming practice, although small areas survived, usually where ploughing was too difficult. So, when I heard about the visit to Higher Coombe, an area of chalk grassland above Litton Cheney, as part of the South Dorset Ridgeway Festival of Discovery, I jumped at the chance to see this ancient landscape and its exuberant floral displays.
We gathered near the entrance to Coombe Farm just off the busy A35. Despite this being only a few days away from the summer solstice, the sky was overcast and a cold, blustery wind cut across the ridge sending many of us to grab warmer clothing. The coombe fell away to the south, a deep gash in the chalk with precipitous grassy sides and extra folds and creases giving the landscape the look of a rumpled duvet. A farm track clung to the eastern side of the coombe and higher up, near Coombe Coppice, sheep dotted the hillside. Beyond the coombe, occasional shafts of sunlight illuminated the Bride Valley and its patchwork of green fields. The sea should have been visible but a distant mist had taken its place.
Local expert Nick Gray, from the Dorset Wildlife Trust, was our guide for the afternoon. He began by shepherding us through a farm gate on to the western slope of Higher Coombe to follow a rough contour along the hillside. Walking was difficult, there was no distinct path in the long, thick grass and the steepness of the hillside made it awkward to pause to observe. But there was plenty to see: architectural clumps of thistles with their purple mop heads, many different species of grasses and, where the turf became shorter, a mosaic of colourful wild flowers lighting up the hillside. My attention was drawn by the violet-purple splashes of wild thyme with its distinctive tubular flowers but Nick made sure we also noticed the tiny white trumpet flowers of squinancywort with their delicate pink stripes. The buttery yellow flowers of bird’s foot trefoil were also scattered about the hillside together with frothy lemon-yellow clumps of lady’s bedstraw and the delicate golden globes of black medic. A few lilac-mauve discs of scabious and pink-purple pyramidal orchids added to the display. These were just a few of the diverse plants growing here and it has been estimated that chalk grassland can support up to 40 different species of flowering plant per square metre. It is one of Europe’s most diverse habitats, the European equivalent of the tropical rain forest.
So, why is chalk grassland such a rich habitat? The soil that covers the underlying chalk hills is a great influence, as Nick explained to us. Thin, lime rich and nutrient poor, it holds little water especially on steep slopes and dries out quickly in the summer. These stressed conditions mean that lush grasses cannot dominate and a wide range of chalk loving species can flourish. Good management with controlled grazing is also essential to keep the turf short, stop scrub developing and at the same time allow chalk grassland plants to grow. The land on both sides of Higher Coombe is managed through a stewardship agreement with the farmer whereby, for about six months each year, grazing animals are excluded on one side. When grazing stops, the grassland explodes into flower and this year the western side is getting its chance. Next summer it will be the turn of the eastern side which will be ablaze with orchids.
With this profusion of flowers, I had expected to see many invertebrates but, that afternoon, there were very few flying. Bees in particular were scarce and we saw only two bumblebees all afternoon. Perhaps the cool air, the lack of sunshine and the encroaching sea mist were restricting their activity? We came across two large golden-ringed dragonflies resting among the vegetation on the hillside, unable to fly in these weather conditions. This did, however, give us the chance to examine these normally mobile creatures with their striking yellow bands on a black background. Later on, as we walked through another field on the eastern side of the coombe, we disturbed many small butterflies which seemed to be sheltering in the long grass. In part compensation for the lack of flying insects, there were some beautiful bee orchids and common spotted orchids on this second chalk hillside.
But should we care about the decline of this special and once common habitat? The loss of wild flowers will certainly have affected the beauty of our countryside, as well as contributing to the well-documented decline in insects and farmland birds. There is also evidence that florally-rich chalk grassland provides healthier forage for grazing animals as compared to contemporary feeding on heavily fertilised rye grass. Perhaps, had we been aware of the importance of the chalk grassland landscape, we might have valued it more?
If you want to see some of the remaining pockets of this special landscape then try Eggardon Hill or Maiden Castle or the Cerne and Sydling Downs or, further afield, visit Ballard Down in the Purbecks or Hambledon Hill and Hod Hill north of Blandford. Chalk grassland is glorious at any time of year but the best time for flowers is from spring until early autumn.
Nick Gray talks to the group on Higher Coombe with the Bride Valley in the distance.
wild thyme
squinancywort
One flower and three seed heads of bird’s foot trefoil. The shape of the seed heads is responsible for the “bird’s foot” part of the name and also for one of the plant’s local names, granny’s toenails.
It was a luminous spring morning in early May when I trekked up Hardown Hill in west Dorset in the south west of the UK. Hardown rises steeply above Morcombelake and the surrounding countryside affording fine views of the coast and of the Marshwood Vale. Compared with its well-known cousin, Golden Cap, across the valley (see picture above), this flat-topped hill is unjustly ignored but its heathland summit boasts a rich ecology supporting several rare species and, for many years, Hardown Hill was a busy semi-industrial site where building stone was mined.
Heathland track across Hardown Hill
It’s a steep climb to the top of Hardown Hill but finally the stony track flattens out and I enter a heathland landscape, rare in this part of Dorset. The summit is broad and flat and typical low-growing heathland plants such as gorse and several species of heather flourish here on the acid soil. Pale sandy tracks cut swathes across the heath but, even on a sunny morning in springtime, the feeling is sombre, dominated by dark browns and greens. A few mature birch trees and a small copse of pine trees provide relief and I come across a pond surrounded by tall clumps of pale, dried grass and a struggling sallow. This heath habitat is also the home of rare nightjars, sand lizards and Dartford warblers.
Standing on the Hardown summit is an elemental experience. Today, a moderate wind blows from the west, rising and falling like the sound of surf on the strand. The heath vegetation rustles and fidgets in response, accompanied by skylarks trilling high overhead. I watch a spirited storm tracking across Lyme Bay and prepare to shelter but, in the end, it mostly avoids the land leaving the sun to return. All of this is overlaid on the southern side by the ebb and flow of traffic noise from the busy A35 some distance below.
The heath may look uninviting and barren, but this is springtime and there are many signs of renewal. A few clumps of yellow gorse stand out above fresh grey-green growth and heathers push feathery green and red shoots upwards. Submerged in the thick heath vegetation are the small bright blue and white flowers of heath milkwort piercing the darkness like stars in the night sky. In the past, the flowers were thought to resemble small udders and this may account for the plant’s name as well as its administration to nursing mothers by medieval herbalists. Along path edges on the northern side of the heath, I find several generous clumps of a shrub with pale fleshy leaves, green with a tinge of pink. This is bilberry, covered at this time of year with delicate, almost transparent, pale red, lantern-shaped flowers looking out of place in this harsh environment but proving popular with bumblebees and hoverflies. Late summer will see the plants covered with succulent black fruits.
I encounter only one other person on the heath but it hasn’t always been such a quiet place. From medieval times, Hardown Hill would have resounded to the clash of picks and shovels wielded by men mining the landscape for building materials. Beneath the thin layer of soil that covers the summit, there are layers of clay and a yellow/brown sandy material containing substantial lumps of flint-like, hard rock, the chert cobs. A mixture of clay, stone and sand was taken for road construction and the chert cobs were used for building. Mining occurred on the southern slopes of the Hill, either in open pits or in adits (mine shafts) cut into the hillside. Nowadays there are few traces of this busy activity. The mining area has mostly been colonised by rough grass and bracken, brightened today by a haze of bluebells. One open pit has been preserved near the top of Love’s Lane displaying the layers of rock and the chert cobs. The adits are inaccessible for safety reasons but one serves an important role as a hibernation area for the rare lesser horseshoe bat.
The chert cobs were split using a small hammer on a long handle, the Hardown hammer. Cobs were held on an iron bar with three claws and covered in damp hessian to protect the eyes of workmen who also wore wire goggles. Split cobs were used to provide a tough outer surface, silvery-blue or yellowish, on domestic and farm buildings around the Marshwood Vale. Good examples of the use of Hardown chert can also be found on the 14th century abandoned chapel at Stanton St Gabriel beneath Golden Cap and on the tiny 19th century church at Catherston Leweston.
But it is to the height of Hardown Hill that I want to return. Its prominence above the surrounding countryside gives spectacular views with new perspectives on some of west Dorset’s notable landmarks. Looking southwards, we see Golden Cap and the darkly-wooded Langdon Hill rising steeply across the valley with a backdrop of the waters of Lyme Bay (see picture at the top of this post). Towards the east, Portland floats unsettlingly as if cast adrift. To the north, especially from Hardown’s rough grassy flanks, we look across the patchwork of fields and the ring of hills that make up the Marshwood Vale with the village of Whitchurch Canonicorum cradled in its green embrace. New perspectives challenge us to think differently and the relative isolation of Hardown fosters quiet contemplation away from the cares of everyday life.
Perhaps that’s what Thomas Hardy meant when he wrote in his poem “Wessex Heights”:
“There are some heights in Wessex, shaped as if by a kindly hand
For thinking, dreaming, dying on, ………….”
Marshwood Vale and Whitchurch Canonicorum from Hardown Hill
Bilberry on Hardown Hill
Heath Milkwort on Hardown Hill
Orange-tailed mining bee (A. haemorrhoa) on Hardown Hill
Mistaken marriages, passionate affairs, tragic deaths, richly interwoven with folklore and superstition. This is the complex concoction contained in The Return of the Native, one of Thomas Hardy’s great novels. Hardy set his narrative on the semi-fictional Egdon Heath, a “vast tract of unenclosed wild” that assumes a claustrophobic, controlling influence on his characters. Hardy’s Egdon Heath has many of the features of the heath landscape that once filled the space between Dorchester and Bournemouth. I wanted to experience Egdon so, on a warm, humid day towards the end of July, I went to Winfrith Heath one of the surviving fragments of this Dorset heathland.
Looking across the heath showing the subtle colour effect of the heather flowers
I followed a sandy soil track on to the heath, descending gradually between borders of gorse and low trees. As I gained distance from the road, long views opened up across the gently undulating terrain surrounding me and an eerie quiet descended, broken only by trains passing on the heath-edge line. Apart from the occasional stunted tree and a few drifts of pale green bracken much of this part of the heath appeared featureless and barren.
Closer inspection, however, revealed some of the heath’s special wildlife. Near the path edge, the cheerful purples, pinks and violets of the three common species of heather showed well. These heathers flourish across the heath alongside rough grasses and gorse, and their bright pastel-coloured flowers lend a purple-pink tinge to long views at this time of year, the colour augmented by sunshine but lost in a mass of dull browns and greens when cloud covers. Large, metallic blue and green emperor dragon flies, the size of small birds, were attracted to the ponds scattered across the heath. They swept back and forth across the water making repeated, aerial, hairpin turns in a constant search for insect food. Heather spikes dipped momentarily when yellow-striped bumblebees moved among the flower-bells collecting pollen and nectar.
The sandy path levelled out. Heathland now spread extensively on both sides and, together with the grey cloud cover, created a claustrophobic feeling. Ahead of me was a band of trees with a gate and standing water. The trees mark a drainage ditch feeding into the Tadnoll Brook, a chalk-stream tributary of the River Frome. I crossed the ditch on a very solid brick bridge, and was transported to a different world, one of damp meadows and thick rushy grass. The wet meadow, soggy underfoot, was dominated by untidy stands of shoulder-high marsh thistles with multiple, prolific, spiny stems. Each stem was topped by a starburst of flower heads, a mixture of shaggy purple flowers and brown and white fluffy seed heads. Between the thistles, the lemon-yellow cushion flowers of bird’s foot trefoil scrambled through the undergrowth and, as I walked, pale brown grasshoppers soared in long arcs from the rough grass, seeking safety away from me.
Butterflies danced around the unruly thistle flowers like confetti caught in the breeze, pausing occasionally to take nectar. Small tortoiseshell, marbled white and peacock resembled colourful modernist stained glass and a pair of gatekeepers performed an airborne ballet. This enclosed wetland felt like a land of plenty, a land of unconstrained, fulsome growth. Even in high summer, however, the meadow was wet and marshy so that after winter rain the area will become boggy and treacherous. A group of cows lurked in a corner of the meadow watching me; they help to control growth of vegetation but create further hazards for the unwary walker.
These two very different habitats, the larger lowland heath and the smaller wet meadow make up the majority of the Winfrith reserve as we see it today but the area hasn’t always looked like this. Until the Bronze Age, this land was covered with forest (birch, pine, hazel, elm, oak) but 3-4000 years ago trees began to be felled exposing the underlying soil. Nutrients were gradually washed away from freely draining soils leaving behind a relatively acidic surface where heathers and gorse flourished, eventually creating the heath we see today. This landscape was maintained and scrub encroachment prevented through a combination of grazing by cattle and ponies and by heathland practices such as furze, turf and peat cutting.
Heathland once stretched from Dorchester in the west to the Avon Valley in the east but much has been lost following changes in agricultural practices or through building; a large part of Winfrith Heath was swallowed up when the nuclear research facility was built in the 1950s and still lies behind forbidding fences. Today, only 15% of the original heath is left but what remains is a very important and rare landscape and part of Dorset’s history. Its importance as a special habitat supporting rare species such as the Dartford warbler and the nightjar is recognised by its designation as a Site of Special Scientific Interest but the heathland is still threatened directly or indirectly by development.
But did I get any sense of what Hardy’s Egdon Heath was like from my visit? Even on a small area like Winfrith, there was a definite sense of isolation in the central part of the heath, and that feeling was only partially lifted when the sun shone and the heath took on some colour. So, if it’s solitude you are after, then it’s a perfect place. One person’s solitude is, however, another person’s loneliness and it’s not difficult to see how Egdon might have depressed some of Hardy’s characters. Neither is the heath a benign environment; care is required in all seasons but in winter, it is bleak, brown and very windy with boggy areas dangerous especially after wet weather. Having said all that, the heath does have an undeniable grandeur but its very rarity as a landscape nowadays means that we may not know how to react to it. Perhaps like Hardy’s “survivors” we should simply accept and embrace the heath for what it is, foibles and all.
Winfrith Heath lies to the west of Gatemore Road in Winfrith Newburgh and a Dorset Wildlife Trust information board marks the entrance.
Bell heather, ling and gorse on Winfrith Heath
Cross-leaved heath
A pond on the heath with an emperor dragonfly
Small tortoiseshell butterfly on marsh thistle
Peacock butterfly on marsh thistle with bumblebee
The former nuclear research facility seen through trees and behind forbidding fences on the other side of Gatemore Road.
A surprising picture appeared in the Guardian newspaper towards the end of June. It showed fields, near Blandford, Dorset in South West England, painted lilac with the flowers of the opium poppy. This controversial crop, associated in many people’s minds with war-torn countries like Afghanistan, is now being grown commercially in England to produce the medically-important pain killer morphine. But just how did opium poppies come to be grown across swathes of rural England?
Opium and the opium poppy
Papaver somniferum as described in a 19th century German book (from Wikipedia, click on the picture for more details)
The opium poppy, or Papaver somniferum as it is more correctly called, is an imposing plant with fleshy grey-green leaves, showy pastel coloured flowers and impressive pepper pot seed heads. Standing up to a metre tall, the opium poppy brings architectural interest to the garden but it has a darker side. Within the seed head is a milky liquid containing a mixture of narcotic chemicals including morphine and codeine. If the unripe seed head is pierced, this latex seeps out and, left to dry, this is opium, prized for its extraordinary psychoactive powers.
The unripe seed capsule of an opium poppy pierced to release the opium (from Wikipedia)
Humans have used opium for many thousands of years and the earliest written reference to the drug comes from the Middle East around 4000BC. The ancient Egyptian, Greek and Roman civilisations were also well acquainted with the properties of the drug using it enthusiastically. Although growth of Papaver somniferum is typically associated with warmer climates, the opium poppy has a history of cultivation in the UK. In the 18th and 19th centuries, many houses in the East Anglian Fens grew a stand of white opium poppies so that the dried seed capsules could be used to brew a tea containing small amounts of morphine. This infusion helped counter the aches and pains suffered by people living harsh lives in what was then, a remote, unhealthy part of the country. Use was not confined to the Fens as the Dorset-writerThomas Hardy, in The Trumpet Major, refers to poppy heads and pain relief.
By the 19th century, imported opium was freely available in the UK and was used extensively at all levels of society. Opium was supplied in many forms including laudanum, a tincture of opium in wine, popularised by the Dorset-born physician Thomas Sydenham. The drug was taken to relieve pain, to induce sleep and to treat cough and diarrhoea. Its euphoriant properties were also prized and recreational use occurred with some problems of dependence. Encouraged by the drug’s popularity, attempts were made in the late 18th and early 19th centuries to grow opium poppies commercially in the UK but these were abandoned in favour of imported Turkish opium.
From opium to morphine
Morphine was isolated from opium in the 19th century and the powerful pain killing and euphoriant properties of the pure drug were quickly recognised. These come at a price as, compared to opium, morphine has potentially dangerous side effects and is highly addictive. By the 20th century, all non-medical use was banned but, to the present day, morphine is widely prescribed to relieve moderate and severe pain especially after major surgery. Diamorphine (heroin) is also used for pain relief in the UK but we hear more about its illicit use, the problems of addiction and the associated criminal activity. All morphine used clinically is still obtained from the opium poppy, extracted either from crude opium or from the dried seed heads.
The 21st century opium fields of England
Opium poppies growing near Bere Regis in Dorset, UK showing the seed heads (by Jane V Adams)
By the end of the 20th century, the morphine used for medical purposes in the UK was extracted from opium poppies grown in Tasmania and Spain. It was tacitly assumed that the climate in the UK was unsuitable for their commercial cultivation. In 1999, however, John Manners, a seed merchant from Oxfordshire questioned this doctrine. He had seen striking pictures of purple opium poppies growing commercially in Poland, and decided to have a go at growing the plants in the UK. He set up some small trial plots and grew the poppies successfully in the southern part of the country. But did they produce morphine when grown in the UK? With the help of the Scottish pharmaceutical company, Macfarlan Smith (now a division of Johnson-Matthey), he showed that indeed they did. A full field trial the following year in Oxfordshire was also a success and, by 2002, 100 hectares of opium poppies were being grown commercially in the UK, each hectare yielding about 15 kg of morphine. More farmers were persuaded to grow the crop and nowadays, early summer sees about 2500 hectares of farmland blooming with the unselfconscious lilac flowers, mostly in the counties of Dorset, Hampshire, Lincolnshire and Oxfordshire.
Opium poppies growing in Lincolnshire, UK (from Wikipedia)
Although they were initially uneasy about growing opium poppies, farmers now find it to be a lucrative break crop to prepare the land for growing cereals or oil seed rape the following season. Farmers contracted to Macfarlan Smith must prepare the seed bed and sow poppy seed supplied by the company which also advises on agronomy and pest control while the opium poppies are growing. The UK climate seems to suit the poppies well and after flowering they are left to dry before the seed capsule and about 5 cm of stem are harvested. The harvest is taken to a central processing facility where the poppy seeds in the capsule are separated leaving “poppy straw”. Poppy seeds contain little or no morphine and are sold for various culinary uses such as bread making. Poppy straw is processed in Macfarlan Smith’s Edinburgh factory where the morphine is isolated by solvent extraction and purification. About half of the UK requirement of medical morphine (~60 tons/year) is now made from poppies grown in the UK, including those grown in Dorset. So when you come across these beautiful lilac-painted fields next summer, think morphine, think pain relief, and think poppy extracts ending up in medicine cabinets in hospitals and pharmacies.
I should like to thank Marilyn Peddle (www.marilynjanephotography.co.uk) for generously providing the featured image which is of opium poppies growing in North Dorset and Jane Adams (https://urbanextension.wordpress.com/) for generously providing the photograph of opium poppies growing near Dorchester.
This is a slightly modified version of an article that appeared in the September edition of the Marshwood Vale Magazine.
A few weeks ago I attended a course at the Dartington International Summer School. Here are some thoughts on the week.
The Great Hall at DartingtonIt’s about nine thirty on a warm mid August evening and I am standing outside the Great Hall at Dartington in South Devon with two friends, Monica and Ruth. The music of Elgar floods through the Hall’s open windows and we are transfixed. The Dartington String Orchestra under Sir Neville Marriner is playing the Introduction and Allegro. The String Orchestra comes together for five days during the Summer School to rehearse and perform a major piece of music. The opportunity of performing with Neville Marriner has been a big draw – there are about a hundred players and the sound is strong and clear. When the music draws to a close, there is a noticeable pause. Then the applause rises and we head to the bar, it is now our turn to play.
We are part of the next event on the programme, the English Roots Gig, the culmination of another week’s course in the Dartington International Summer School. A group of about twenty of us have been learning and playing folk tunes, mostly from the UK. There were twelve fiddlers (myself included), six cellos, four guitars and a mandolin. Some were also in the String Orchestra; others like myself were of lower standard but with some folk experience. The course was lead by fiddler Pete Cooper and cellist Richard Bolton, two highly respected folk musicians. We spent 90 minutes each day on the formal part of the course and learnt half a dozen tunes. We learnt by ear; no printed music was allowed!
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In the bar, chairs have been arranged in a circle so that the musicians will have a better chance to see and hear one another. As the Great Hall empties, the bar fills up and, by the time we start, it’s pretty full and quite noisy. I wonder what those who were at the classical concert will make of our music.
Pete leads and we begin with “Wednesday Night”, a tune found in the books of 19th century Shropshire fiddler John Moore. It’s quite a simple tune even when played at speed, as we do now. It goes well; the sound is good, we seem to be playing together and there is a good response from the audience. Next we play a pair of tunes, “Dribbles of Brandy” and “Bang up”; “Dribbles” comes from the manuscripts of Thomas Hardy and “Bang Up” from the manuscripts of John Clare. The pace gets up a bit. “Dribbles” is fine at this speed but “Bang up” is a bit of a challenge for me but we are a big band and if I miss a few notes it doesn’t matter. Again, the response is good and I notice a group, mainly young women, by the bar who are beginning to move with the music which is accented and very dancy. We continue with a mixture of slower and faster tunes, some played by the band and some by Pete and Richard and the would-be dancers are hooked.
They move in to the space in the middle of our circle and begin to dance. On this small, makeshift dance-floor they are close together. Despite this, they manage to move about with accentuated footwork, sometimes waving their hands in the air and sometimes clapping in time to the music. The one male in the group dances rather like a matador facing the bull; one young woman picks up her skirts as if this was Irish step dancing.
They are also dancing close to us and we sense their energy, excitement and bravado – they dance for themselves but they know they are also putting on a show. The music and the dancing feed off one another and I find myself moving with the rhythm even as I play.
We continue with two Polish Tunes we learnt during the week. These are “Brigands Dances” and sound very different compared to the English tunes, but they go down very well, especially as some of the women are from Eastern Europe. The atmosphere is now electric. The unexpected arrival of the dancers has turned this from a performance in to an exciting event.
After one or two more English tunes including “Jacob”, one of Thomas Hardy’s favourites, we attempt to finish. The dancers demand more and, as an encore, we play the two “Brigands Dances” again. We start fast and at this pace the dancing is frenetic – they do, indeed, “dance more wildly”. Occasional shrieks of delight come from the group and Pete responds by playing faster still – more shrieks, higher pace, it’s difficult to keep up. And then suddenly, it’s all over; the dancers limp off and the musicians pack their instruments away.
For me, playing tonight has been an amazing experience which I enjoyed greatly. When I try to leave, it’s difficult to navigate out of the crowed bar but a woman sees me struggling with my fiddle and bow and beckons to show me a way through. As I thank her, she says to me “I enjoyed that more than I expected”.
The title is taken from a Chapter heading in Thomas Hardy’s “Under the Greenwood Tree” where he describes a Christmas dance in the fictional village of Mellstock in the early 19th century.
Philip Strange Science and Nature Writing 