Autumn on Old Down
Old Down is about 12 hectares of ex farm land with a narrow strip of mature beech wood part owned by Basingstoke & Deane Borough Council. The mature woodland is classed as a Site of Importance for Nature Conservation (SINC). The Old Down & Beggarwood Wildlife Group manages wildlife aspects of Old Down for the benefit of the community and for wildlife.
Wildflower rich chalk downland is a priority habitat in the Hampshire County Council Biodiversity Action Plan (BAP). In 2009 Old Down had 155 species of trees shrubs, plants and grasses. The Old Down & Beggarwood Wildlife Group want to encourage more species and in increasing numbers.
When taken into public ownership half of the farmland was sown with grasses and half with trees and shrubs. An area around the Tumulus was sown with wildflowers and more are starting to colonise. The wildlife group is working to bring back wildflowers, to increase interest and colour for people, and food, nesting, roosting and hiding places for insects (including butterflies and bees), birds and small mammals. To have a healthy wildlife we need healthy populations of wildflowers. Birdsfoot Trefoil, for example, is food for 50 species of insect.
New wood and shrub areas are being progressively thinned and hazel coppiced on a cycle to create a more open structure that lets in light to the woodland floor. This will, in time, encourage woodland wildflowers to colonise. Coppiced Hazel will have the added benefit of creating thickets for birds as they grow back and the coppicing prolongs the life of the hazel too. Scrub, while valuable for wildlife, is kept in check and managed to discourage rabbits. Rabbits kill young trees by eating the bark and overgrazing of wildflowers prevents plants from producing flowers and nectar for insects, or seed for new plants or food for birds.
Grassland needs to be cut and cleared annually as an alternative to grazing so that wildflowers can compete with grasses. Removing seasonal growth allows new seed to make soil contact and receive light and warmth to germinate. The trials in fenced and unfenced areas are testing different approaches to reseeding and to see which plants do well. Wildflowers are mostly perennials and can take several years to flower. The time to cut and the height is key and has to take account of the species of grasses and plants that grow in an area.
This mature woodland belt on the southern edge of Old Down consists of beech trees which is a genus of deciduous trees in the family Fagaceae, native to temperate Europe, Asia and North America. Recent classification systems of the genus recognize ten to thirteen species in two distinct subgenera, Engleriana and Fagus. The classification of the European beech, Fagus sylvatica is complex, with a variety of different names proposed for different species and subspecies within this region (for example Fagus taurica, Fagus orientalis, and Fagus moesica). Research suggests that beeches in Eurasia differentiated fairly late in evolutionary history, during the Miocene.
The European beech (Fagus sylvatica) is the most commonly cultivated, although there are few important differences between species aside from detail elements such as leaf shape. The leaves of beech trees are entire or sparsely toothed, from 5–15 cm long and 4–10 cm broad. Beeches are monoecious, bearing both male and female flowers on the same plant. The small flowers are unisexual, the female flowers borne in pairs, the male flowers wind-pollinating catkins. They are produced in spring shortly after the new leaves appear. The bark is smooth and light grey. The fruit is a small, sharply three–angled nut 10–15 mm long, borne singly or in pairs in soft-spined husks 1.5–2.5 cm long, known as cupules. The husk can have a variety of spine- to scale-like appendages, the character of which is, in addition to leaf shape, one of the primary ways beeches are differentiated. The nuts are edible, though bitter (though not nearly as bitter as acorns) with a high tannin content, and are called beechnuts or beechmast.
Old Down is located beside the A30 on the west side of Basingstoke about 1 mile from Junction 7 of the M3 in an area known as Kempshott which is a ward of Basingstoke on the western edge of the town, to the south of Pack Lane and north of Winchester Road.
The manor of Kempshott belonged to Aldret in the reign of Edward the Confessor, and is recorded as being part of the possessions of Hugh de Port, High Sheriff of Hampshire in 1086.
A. M.W. Stirling, editor of Stephen Terry's The Diaries of Dummer, states that the Prince of Wales rented Kempshot House around 1788 as a hunting lodge (It was demolished at the time of the construction of the M3. Kempshott appears to be a 20c spelling). He brought Mrs Fitzherbert here and it was stated that it was furnished to her taste. The Prince of Wales later had his honeymoon in the house in 1795 with Caroline of Brunswick.
The estate developed with the creation of Homesteads Road and Kempshott Lane to generate a farming community mostly for egg production for Jobs Diary. However, this changed quickly with the London overspill and Kempshott soon became part of Basingstoke.
The housing was largely built in the 1970s and early 1980s in three phases referred to and having the roads named after, Lakes (Between Homesteads Road and Pack Lane), Flowers (East side of Kempshott Lane, south of Homesteads Way), and Birds (West side of Kempshott Lane). In recent years an additional housing development referred to as Gabriel Park was built and is situated at the A30 end of Kempshott Lane adjacent to Old Down.
www.basingstoke.gov.uk/NR/rdonlyres/4018D95D-3440-4013-A8...
Autumn on Old Down
Old Down is about 12 hectares of ex farm land with a narrow strip of mature beech wood part owned by Basingstoke & Deane Borough Council. The mature woodland is classed as a Site of Importance for Nature Conservation (SINC). The Old Down & Beggarwood Wildlife Group manages wildlife aspects of Old Down for the benefit of the community and for wildlife.
Wildflower rich chalk downland is a priority habitat in the Hampshire County Council Biodiversity Action Plan (BAP). In 2009 Old Down had 155 species of trees shrubs, plants and grasses. The Old Down & Beggarwood Wildlife Group want to encourage more species and in increasing numbers.
When taken into public ownership half of the farmland was sown with grasses and half with trees and shrubs. An area around the Tumulus was sown with wildflowers and more are starting to colonise. The wildlife group is working to bring back wildflowers, to increase interest and colour for people, and food, nesting, roosting and hiding places for insects (including butterflies and bees), birds and small mammals. To have a healthy wildlife we need healthy populations of wildflowers. Birdsfoot Trefoil, for example, is food for 50 species of insect.
New wood and shrub areas are being progressively thinned and hazel coppiced on a cycle to create a more open structure that lets in light to the woodland floor. This will, in time, encourage woodland wildflowers to colonise. Coppiced Hazel will have the added benefit of creating thickets for birds as they grow back and the coppicing prolongs the life of the hazel too. Scrub, while valuable for wildlife, is kept in check and managed to discourage rabbits. Rabbits kill young trees by eating the bark and overgrazing of wildflowers prevents plants from producing flowers and nectar for insects, or seed for new plants or food for birds.
Grassland needs to be cut and cleared annually as an alternative to grazing so that wildflowers can compete with grasses. Removing seasonal growth allows new seed to make soil contact and receive light and warmth to germinate. The trials in fenced and unfenced areas are testing different approaches to reseeding and to see which plants do well. Wildflowers are mostly perennials and can take several years to flower. The time to cut and the height is key and has to take account of the species of grasses and plants that grow in an area.
This mature woodland belt on the southern edge of Old Down consists of beech trees which is a genus of deciduous trees in the family Fagaceae, native to temperate Europe, Asia and North America. Recent classification systems of the genus recognize ten to thirteen species in two distinct subgenera, Engleriana and Fagus. The classification of the European beech, Fagus sylvatica is complex, with a variety of different names proposed for different species and subspecies within this region (for example Fagus taurica, Fagus orientalis, and Fagus moesica). Research suggests that beeches in Eurasia differentiated fairly late in evolutionary history, during the Miocene.
The European beech (Fagus sylvatica) is the most commonly cultivated, although there are few important differences between species aside from detail elements such as leaf shape. The leaves of beech trees are entire or sparsely toothed, from 5–15 cm long and 4–10 cm broad. Beeches are monoecious, bearing both male and female flowers on the same plant. The small flowers are unisexual, the female flowers borne in pairs, the male flowers wind-pollinating catkins. They are produced in spring shortly after the new leaves appear. The bark is smooth and light grey. The fruit is a small, sharply three–angled nut 10–15 mm long, borne singly or in pairs in soft-spined husks 1.5–2.5 cm long, known as cupules. The husk can have a variety of spine- to scale-like appendages, the character of which is, in addition to leaf shape, one of the primary ways beeches are differentiated. The nuts are edible, though bitter (though not nearly as bitter as acorns) with a high tannin content, and are called beechnuts or beechmast.
Old Down is located beside the A30 on the west side of Basingstoke about 1 mile from Junction 7 of the M3 in an area known as Kempshott which is a ward of Basingstoke on the western edge of the town, to the south of Pack Lane and north of Winchester Road.
The manor of Kempshott belonged to Aldret in the reign of Edward the Confessor, and is recorded as being part of the possessions of Hugh de Port, High Sheriff of Hampshire in 1086.
A. M.W. Stirling, editor of Stephen Terry's The Diaries of Dummer, states that the Prince of Wales rented Kempshot House around 1788 as a hunting lodge (It was demolished at the time of the construction of the M3. Kempshott appears to be a 20c spelling). He brought Mrs Fitzherbert here and it was stated that it was furnished to her taste. The Prince of Wales later had his honeymoon in the house in 1795 with Caroline of Brunswick.
The estate developed with the creation of Homesteads Road and Kempshott Lane to generate a farming community mostly for egg production for Jobs Diary. However, this changed quickly with the London overspill and Kempshott soon became part of Basingstoke.
The housing was largely built in the 1970s and early 1980s in three phases referred to and having the roads named after, Lakes (Between Homesteads Road and Pack Lane), Flowers (East side of Kempshott Lane, south of Homesteads Way), and Birds (West side of Kempshott Lane). In recent years an additional housing development referred to as Gabriel Park was built and is situated at the A30 end of Kempshott Lane adjacent to Old Down.
www.basingstoke.gov.uk/NR/rdonlyres/4018D95D-3440-4013-A8...