Erie Wood: Growing History
Erie Wood: Growing History
Despite the Coronavirus lockdown, maintenance work has continued on the nature reserve as usual and we’ve been pleased to welcome a lot more visitors enjoying local walks. There’s been plenty to do, and work on one of our projects, Erie Wood: Growing History, is now nearing completion, with the help of some new volunteers.
The woodland has been created by planting 65 trees at the Alder Road end of the nature reserve, one for each of the huts on the former Erie Estate. We are now looking for as many of the former residents of the huts as we can find so each family can choose a tree with the same number. Local families will be offered the remaining trees to adopt – free of charge. Next year, we hope to invite everyone to an inauguration ceremony to personalise their choice of tree by planting spring bulbs nearby. We’re grateful to Councillors Floss Mitchell, Richard Millard and the One Stop for funding this project.
Another project underway this autumn is Heathland Heritage: putting the heather back in Heatherlands. As many of you will know, before the Second World War and the construction of the Canadian Erie Camp, the site was open heathland. Preparations have begun on a section of sunny bank at the Maple Way end of the nature reserve to restore a little bit of this local heritage by planting various heathers. We’ll choose varieties to flower at different times of the year to encourage bees and butterflies, and to give a feast for visitors’ eyes too. We’re hoping that there’ll be plenty of volunteers to help with the planting. In this case, our thanks for funding go to Councillors Anthony Williams and Richard Millard who have added to an award from the East Hampshire District Council S106 fund.
Next on the agenda will be our ‘Heart of Erie Wood’ project. We are hoping to raise sufficient funds for a permanent sculpture to act as a destination point in the middle of the new Erie Wood. It will have a hard-surfaced path connecting with the existing one, in order to allow access for all. In the meantime, we look forward to chatting to the regulars when we’re out working on the reserve, and to meeting new visitors. It’s sad that we have been unable to hold any community events as usual, but we hope that before long we’ll be able to meet up all together again.
