More Bluebells and the Original(?) Great North Road.

Moor Bluebells and the Original(?) Great North Road.

I don't know what! I don't blog for ages, and then you get two similarly themed ones within about a week!

Today the weather was glorious. One of those glorious Spring days when you simply need to be out and about in it, if you can. Also I wanted to get out into some more bluebell woods while they were at their best, and I knew exactly where the best place to see their best around here is; Brussleton Woods.

So this time I parked up on the Bishop Auckland by-pass near West Auckland, and set off on this path across the floodplain and water meadows of the River Gaunless, heading for the woods on the hill.

I had never really explored this area below the woods before, and it was lovely, and quite good for nature too, with areas of pasture, water meadow and a few ponds. Quite a lot of birds about, including a pair of nesting Lapwings (or they may have been Common Plovers, or Peewits? (Yes! I know all three are the same bird! LOL!)). And the day was dominated by lots of Orange-tip Butterflies, some fighting each other over to us unseen territorial boundaries; as well as a few other butterflies.

I had purposely gone today (a Monday) as I thought there would be less people about, but on this section there were 4 other people and two dogs! Like Piccadilly Circus for a walk in North-East England. But after this I saw no one else for ages.

After crossing this level ground, my way started rising up the side of a reasonable hill, to the point where I was about to enter the woods and looked back across Bishop Auckland.

You probably can't see it, but if you follow the hedge line left of centre (where the first photos were taken), to the by-pass, which is in front of the mostly white buildings, I could make out my pretty blue car!

And to the right of me here were the woods.

You can't see the blue haze under the tree canopy in this picture, but it is there.

So I happily entered into the semi-shade of what is an area of wood-pasture, where in the past the trees would of been managed as pollards, with cattle and deer grazing the undergrowth below. Now it seems to be only grazed by deer (I did see one Roe Deer), which seem to be doing a good job of it.

It's funny how the masses of bluebells just don't seem to be so obvious in the pictures?

I paused here and whipped it out!

My Recorder that is, and played for a while. First of all the 'English Nightingale', which I am re-learning, but will never be able to play the full version as good as this;-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvDb5EmhfZI&list=RDZvDb5EmhfZI&start_radio=1

It is the pièce de résistance of recorder music and some of the variations are virtually impossible!

I then played my amalgam of Jacob van Eyck's version of 'Daphne' and the version in the 'English Dancing Master'. Again, no where as near as good as this; -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mlQdeHKfGU&t=110s

And then similarly 'Upon a Summers Day'.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JI12DePJVo

I then made my way eastwards through the blue beauty of the bluebells and the green loveliness of the sprouting leafy greenery of the trees.

Spot the Peacock butterfly! LOL!

Bluebells as far as the eye could see. Even as a Summer Solstice baby, this is my favourite time of year. And my favourite place to be, for as long as I can remember, is to be in a bluebell wood. And this really is one of the best!

Here's an old hazel coppice stool. Long after most of the old trees in the North-East were cleared for pit props, there remained a demand for hazel whithies for making baskets to haul and transport the coal from the pits (although there were also horse-drawn wooden wagon-ways in this area too from the 17thC). There also seems to have been a demand for hazel whithies even after their use was no longer needed in the pits. Maybe just for the shopping baskets of all the collier's wives?

And more bluebells.

Surely that must be enough pictures of bluebells? 

Nah! There is never an excuse for not having more pictures of bluebells, especially when I saw more and more as I progressed; sometimes along clear paths like this.

And then the path would disappear and I would have to tread through the bluebells, and across small hollows full of old dead leaves, so deep that it was like walking on a mattress.

And then I could see that others too had had to walk on the bluebells, they were just so thick on the ground; perhaps hiding any path?

And finally, one last picture of bluebells.

I then reached and turned left onto 'Deer Street' the old main Roman road from the south to the northern end of Roman Britain.

As you can see, now, here, after nearly 2,000 years of use, it has become a sunken lane, abounding with a rich diversity of old trees and woodland plants.

And are these some stones from the base layer of the Roman road still in situ?

This got me musing;

"Where Romans trod, 
In hob-nails shod.
Now warblers praise,
Of past glory days....."

You'll be glad to know I had trouble taking this any further, as all I was getting was things like "And Chiff-Chaffs chaffed!" LOL!

But there are some really gorgeous trees on this section.

Which is interesting, when you remember that this was the original 'Great North Road', assuming that there wasn't an earlier route through here? And, of course, certainly during Medieval and more recent times, there had been a number of routes, some heading from town to town, and others avoiding the towns. This section of road obviously has never been 'modernised' and may not have been used for much more than pack-horses and foot traffic for centuries? But the richness of the flora just goes to show how Brussleton Woods may have been like this in the past. Even richer than it is now!

Slightly sadly, I then left the woods and still on the line of 'Deer Street, continued northwards, on a much more maintained section that is the access to a farm.

But it was still rather glorious!

It was at this point it struck me that I hadn't been singing suitable songs while traversing the woods.  But as I was still fully on my own, I started to strike up some of these songs, as best as I could remember.

There was Thomas Morley's 'It was a Lover and his Lass'.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQ3XbrnLRM0

And his 'Mistress Mine'.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2c8Ki55Cag

I have always had a fondness of singing this in spring woods, because of the line 

"In these woods are none but birds,
They can speak but silent words,
They are pretty harmless things,
They will shade us with their wings."

And more sadly, 'O Mistress Mine'. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQVq6BjUho0

And finally, a much more cheerful song from Thomas Campian's 'I care not for these Ladies'.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myM9BCd3lVQ

This version has a bit of the sauciness with which I think it should be sung.

The last of my journey was just a short, and pleasant slog back in the real World to return to my car; but it was a wonderful and beauty filled day. :)