Our June 2023 meeting was at How Hill where our guide for the evening was Simon Partridge who has held various roles there for many years. We met by the Olympic Oak, formally known as the Hitler Oak which as a sapling was given to Chris Boardman in the 1936 Olympics for a sailing event. It was never a very good specimen and had to be taken down on safety grounds, the top has now been carved with a yacht to mark the event.
The walk took us to the secret garden, which is a very wet area with several water filled dykes and ponds with a fine collection of trees that seem to prefer the wet conditions. The area is open to the public and as such has to be managed so there were several large Beech trees that had been felled along with some that had been “modified” with artificial bat and bird nesting sites. We finished the evening by the river alongside the Wherry Ardea.
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