A topping time!

By the Session Leader:

The appointed task was not one normally greeted with enthusiasm by Green-Gymmers.  Memories of recalcitrant docks and thistles, which we were invited to pull (fat chance of that!) at a nearby site very late in the season one year had not faded completely. 

Our venue this time was also a meadow beside the river Thames, a little further downstream and on the opposite bank.  As is typical of the local culture, it is known quite simply as ‘Riverside Meadows’.  It lies off the junction of the main street of Crowmarsh village (‘The Street’ – that really is the official name) with the bridleway which runs parallel to the river along the floodplain (‘Watery Lane’).

Within Riverside Meadows, the specific work-site was ‘Field C’:

Field C viewed from the west side.
In the background: hedge-line planted by a previous WGG party;
tree-line running alongside Watery Lane; in the distance, Crowmarsh Hill 

The task: as before, to clear the pasture-land of weeds which are of concern to farmers.  On this occasion, some of the plants were still in flower; and our instructions were simply to de-head (‘top’) and remove the cuttings to a place where they can do no harm to the agricultural purpose of the land.

This was the main species we were to prevent from seeding:

Curled/Curly Dock (Rumex crispus) – building in the background is a boat club

We also went for various varieties of thistles, as we came across them:

Nettles (of which there were a few) were largely spared on this occasion.

Not our favourite job then.  But the aim of WGG is good exercise, so the group was happy to get going.  As you can see, there were plenty of both dock and thistle to go after.  Volunteers had different methods of making the final approach: bowing or genuflecting.

A group of friendly cows came over to help, probably because they thought the buckets we were using to collect the cut seed-heads might contain food.  They were described to us as “Holsteins”, 1-year-old.

[I’d have called those cattle ‘Friesians’: used for dairy in northern Europe (which is where they originate) and GB; mixed-use elsewhere in the world.  ‘Holstein’ is what the breed is named in the USA.  Kept making me think of beer (Holsten Pils).  Mmm… beer – Ed.]

Besides the buckets a new tarpaulin, requested at our recent AGM, was trialled:

“It’s bigger than I thought!”

First use – that’s the thistle, now an ex-thistle, which you saw earlier in the photo near the top of the page

The tarp had the advantage of taking a big load of the vegetation, here arranged, as one member put it, “as a sculpture suitable for the Tate Modern”:

This became quite heavy to pull, but, art or not, it was hauled away for destruction:

The trouble with a new tarpaulin is that no one wants to risk tearing it on the barbed wire.  Eventually, when the pile had been reduced to a manageable weight, the remainder was tipped over, by which time quite an audience of Green-Gymmers had gathered to watch

At tea break, the cows came over in force.  One, bolder than the others, came round to explore the landie:

Chiefly, however, they were fascinated by this new plaything …

although they decided it did not taste as good as grass:

Equally methodically, we Green-Gymmers worked our way across the field, clearing as far as the footpath which runs directly beside the river.  Now we had a closer view of boats and boathouses, including Wallingford Rowing Club’s, which we had first seen in the distance at the start of the session:

Several walkers came over to find out why on earth we were pulling docks and thistles, thinking that the cows would eat them.  Cows are not the brightest of farm animals, but they know what they don’t like.  [Smarter than sheep, though; still not the brightest of stars – Ed.]

The weeds at Riverside were easy to deal with – indeed some proved quite amenable to being pulled – and several members actually said at the end that it had been a very enjoyable day’s exercise.  Field C is big, but over the morning we had succeeded in clearing a good half of it.

Breaking new ground

By ‘C’:

Dorchester was a new venue for us.  That’s Dorchester-on-Thames, of course, not the Dorset town – from point of view of sites we have been to before, “at the back of Wittenham Clumps”:

The street address for where we were working was Watling Lane, which sounds ever so interesting historically.  And indeed, our ‘HQ’ (vehicle with tools, equipment, and all-important tea-crate) was parked up at the entrance to a spot which is of great interest to archaeologists.

For the last ten years, every summer during the Long Vacation, students have descended on Dorchester from the University of Oxford.  First-year undergraduates reading ‘Arch & Anth’ get the chance to take part in a training excavation there, joining forces with Oxford Archaeology and local residents.  ‘Discovering Dorchester’ is a long-term research project, which has investigated several sites.  Latterly it has focused on the allotment area, to the south-west of the High Street:

Oxfordshire Dorchester is now just a village.  In the past, however, it was a very important place – and I don’t just mean that our route from RV point to work-area took us past the site where those big stars of theatre and screen, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton had plans for a beautiful house they would live in (but never did) when work brought them to Oxford.  Or that the town is often used as a set by contemporary film-makers.  ‘Credits’ include: Agatha Christie’s Poirot – episode ‘Taken at the Flood’; Midsomer Murders – ‘The Maid in Splendour’, ‘The House in the Woods’, and ‘The Ballad of Midsomer County’.

There are good strategical-location reasons why, when he came along in the 7th century to evangelize this part of the country, St Birinus chose Dorchester for his HQ.  He’s still there, BTW, buried in the Abbey, which you can see in the background of this shot in the other direction from our HQ:

From the point of view of the university’s School of Archaeology, Dorchester has two advantages.  It is:

• reasonably easy to get to from Oxford, along the A4074
• the only location in Britain which has had towns during the late Iron Age (100 BCE - 43 CE), the Roman era, and Anglo-Saxon times which have not been obscured by later development  

Apparently the highlight of last year’s dig was the finding of evidence of cob-walled buildings dating from the Roman period.  That such buildings must have existed during that period had been posited for the previous thirty years, but this was the first time that any positive proof had been discovered.

As for our own labours this morning, sometimes it is very important to wear the right kit.  To go on court, as a player, at Wimbledon one needs all-white.  To go on site, as a volunteer, at Green Gym today one needed unisex hi-vis:

For the site was the overgrown verge of what is classed as a footpath/bridleway, but is also used by motor vehicles.  Hi-vis essential on account of those who like driving in their cars, but at slightly mad speeds for countryside lanes.  It’s a matter of opinion, of course, but ideas like Proceeding at a Speed Appropriate for the Conditions, or Set ‘Road-Users’ Includes Set ‘Pedestrians’, do not seem to be much in fashion these days.

To be fair to the people of Dorchester, such old-fashioned ideas did seem very much to be still in favour there.  Nearly everyone who drove by us today slowed in good time to a very modest pace.  It was pleasant too that so many people passing, whether on foot or in a vehicle, said “Thank you” to us.

The bridleway was blocked altogether only once, very briefly, and without inconveniencing anyone else:

Most of the first tranche of vegetation removed by us this morning was made up of nettles.  Fortunately, as we had hoped, they allowed themselves to be readily pulled; so we were able to remove a good portion of the root system too.  It has been maintained that nettles really ought to be useful to modern humans in some way.  This, for example, from the fictional M. Madeleine (but surely the exasperated voice of the author), contemplating heaps of uprooted and withering plants:

“They’re dead.  But it would be a good thing if use were made of them.  The young nettle is an excellent vegetable, and as it ages it develops fibres like those of hemp or flax.  Nettle-cloth is as good as hemp-cloth.  Chopped nettles can be fed to poultry, and mashed nettles are good for cattle; nettle-seed mixed with their fodder gives the animals a glossy skin; the roots mixed with salt produce an admirable yellow dye.  Moreover, nettles are a crop that can be harvested twice a year.  And they need almost nothing – very little space and no husbanding or cultivation.  Their only drawback is that the seed falls as it ripens and is difficult to harvest.  With very little trouble nettles can be put to use; being neglected they become obnoxious and are therefore destroyed.  How many men share the fate of the nettle!”  After a moment of silence he added: “My friends, remember this, there are no bad plants or bad men.  There is only bad husbandry.”  
(Victor Hugo – Les Misérables, Pt 1, Bk V, Ch iii)

Sadly, we did not find a use for the nettle this morning.  The more substantial cropped vegetation, however, was made up into habitat piles.  While on the opposite side of the lane, the business of agriculture continued:

At tea-break, one might have been content just to enjoy the sights of high summer:

A good number of Green-Gymmers, however, gravitated to the side of the archaeological dig:

These were the only ‘finds’ Green Gym made this morning:

Inevitably, when rubbish-vegetation is cut back alongside a route used by humans today, one discovers any amount of rubbish which has been heedlessly tossed aside into the long growth.

As the finishing touches were put to the restored verge, we could reflect that – in the words of one Green-Gymmer – “The people of Dorchester can sleep soundly in their beds tonight, knowing their village isn’t going to rack and ruin.”