Evenlode Books Online

Mothering... and fathering

2009-03-07T11:48:00.002Z

Last night Juliet Heslewood gave us a talk about the writiung of her new book, Mother. It's a collection of 40 portraits of mothers by their sons and daughters, from Mrs Durer to Mrs Hockney. It was very popular and Juliet is an inspired speaker.

Being a mother is both active and passive. Mothers mother. We are all mothered: it's an inescapable experience. Even if you can't remember your mother, through death, illness or separation at an early age, she was still there.

A week ago 130 people were in the Memorial Hall to hear a remarkable evening of poetry and music by Charlbury people. The poems were taken from our second anthology of verse by (mostly) living Charlbury poets. The first poem of the evening was about the poet's mother and was deeply moving. It was not the only one. The poems about mothering and mothers were poems of love, sometimes difficult love.

We had to turn down one poem that was submitted for inclusion in the book and that was about a father. It was a poem of hate. And the object of the hatred could have been identified by other surviving relatives. To escape his father the poet had emigrated and changed his name. I suppose he might say he had been 'fathered'.

In the English language it seems that fathering is at best neutral, and usually A BAD THING. Google for 'fathered' and you are almost exclusively in the world of rape, underage sex and abuse. Though apparently Newt Gingrich 'fathered' modern Republicanism. Whatever did he get up to?

Cezanne painted a family portrait that included his father. Then he had second thoughts and painted him out.

But mothering is A GOOD THING. Motherhood and apple pie. Juliet's book will interest, amuse and delight you. Have a look.

"The unfriendliest, most unwelcoming and overtly hostile place I have ever lived in my life."

2009-01-13T08:13:00.007Z

Thus writes an American resident of Charlbury on the town website.

As the 'foreigners' I know appear, on the surface at least, to be happy here, I thought I'd circulate them with a simple question:

"On a scale of 1 (total disagreement) to 5 (complete agreement), where do you stand?"

I also promised anonymity.

It would be very sad if most people agree with this opinion, and of course equally unfortunate for it to be regarded by visitors (or people thinking of moving to the town) as representative of the local experience.

Here are the (edited) replies here I received. If you are a foreigner and would like to add a comment, email me and I'll put it in.

• Number 1 -- total disagreement -- but I don't think I know a whole lot of hostile people... anywhere...

• It's (1), I'm afraid - I totally disagree. I'm lucky, obviously, since I'm part of an English family, and thus quite integrated. But my general experience is that foreigners are content and well accepted here. I do occasionally hear mildly critical comments about the English as a whole; and it may be that a small town like this doesn't suit everyone.

• On a scale of 1 to 5 I would say I am at a (1) for disagreement with his comment. I feel, as a foreigner, that one must tread warily and be VERY aware of local (and pan-British) sensitivities and sensibilities. One cannot come into a place like Charlbury and expect to be as "in your face" as one might be in another country. His comments reveal more about his own thoughtlessness and lack of pacing, than about the people who gave him the negative feedback.

• We both disagree totally (1). (In fact, when I once met him I thought him easily one of the unfriendliest, most unwelcoming people I've come across in Ch....)

• Definitely (1) -- I totally disagree. I had my choice of many places to move when we re-located from Cambridge in 1993, and Charlbury won, hands down!! I come from Texas, noted for its hospitality, and I should think I know friendly when I see it. (Just a slight caveat -- 'British' friendly as opposed to American friendly ... they are different). I had the chance to move to America about 9 years ago and remember the sadness I felt as I walked down Enstone Road, saying hi to everyone and thinking what a long time it took me to just pick up a newspaper since the journey always required many stops, chats, etc., and regretting how I would never re-create such a friendly village-feeling if I moved to the States where everyone drives to shops. I'm glad we changed our mind and stayed. BTW, you don't have to keep me anonymous. :-)

• It's a (1) from me. Actually, it should be a "minus 5", as I find it extremely easy to get on with you lot, undoubtedly due to the gene transplant effected by my Viking forbears in the British Isles. The Vikings did get as far as North America but probably not to California. Or did they, and might that be the reason [he] left for England? So is my lot really to blame for him not feeling welcome anywhere? The mind boggles.

• Moving to Charlbury has been one of the best decisions I have taken in life. Charlbury is the place I now call 'Home', and will be so hopefully for a very long time. So, (1) (Total disagreement) would have to be my view.

• (3) I love Charlbury and will probably spend the rest of my life here so I clearly don't agree with him, but it is also true that it took three years for the woman in *** to recognise me and be friendly; the people in the old co-op were never friendly or even showed they recognised me (despite me coming there for years almost daily) and very few English people have ever invited me into their home in the 15 years I live here, and most of my Charlbury friends are 'foreign' with very few exceptions...
So, I wonder what his experience is based on and where he is from originally. If he would be from Turkey, Eastern Europe, Africa or the Middle East I think it would be very understandable to find England (and Northern Europe) unfriendly and not very hospitable. But I also think English people (specifically from middle England I have been told) are difficult to get to know and difficult to make friends with. You are required to do a lot of 'small talk' and if you are incapable of that and don't meet English conventions (even if it is just because you don't know them), it is my experience that you are easily seen as threatening or at least as foreign and treated as such... in that sense I don't think middle England, including Charlbury, are very welcoming to foreigners.

• I have always felt welcome but then I have made a very conscious effort to fit in; to mimic the behavioural codes and idiomatic speech patterns of people here. Some fellow Dutch friends of mine may be more inclined to agree with [him]. My closest friends have also always been people with an open mind (e.g. well-travelled or with foreign spouses). Having said that, I get on with a diverse selection of Charlburians! My response to your questionnaire would therefore be (2).

• Oh, dear. Has it come to this. I dare say he would find this community (or any community) more welcoming if he wasn’t shooting his mouth off at the citizens so freely.
We would have to register an emphatic (1), total disagreement. We have found Charlbury to be a very friendly and welcoming community. We have lived in quite a number of different communities in different countries and cultures, and we have generally found that the reception one receives from the community depends very much on the way one presents oneself to the community.
Putting my social scientist hat on, Jon, however I should caution you to note in your blog that your poll is far from a proper random sample. There could be all sorts of lonely, embittered foreigners living in town who never come out and buy books because everyone is so unwelcoming and hostile.

More to come. What a relief: "they" seem to like "us" after all. But we're not problem-free either...

New timetables show links to Oxford, Cheltenham and Stratford

2008-12-04T12:55:00.009Z

New bus timetables are now available for the Chipping Norton / Charlbury / Wychwoods area. Produced by the County Council, they include all the new local services, as well as some useful connections to further afield. Among the latter are buses from Witney to Cheltenham, and from Chipping Norton to Stratford, as well as the Charlbury-Oxford service.

Thanks partly to the enthusiasm of Helen Bessemer-Clark in Charlbury, plans are afoot to deliver the timetables door-to-door in Charlbury, Finstock, Ramsden and Leafield, with the co-operation of the parish churches in each place. Sadly, a significant proportion of the population can't read a timetable, so will be none the wiser, but it's all one can do. After Christmas, anyone turning up in Church Street in Charlbury at half past the hour for a bus to Witney or Chipping Norton will have to wait a further 55 minutes. The Bell and the Ramble On Café should do a roaring trade until people learn!

The Chippy-Stratford connection is really useful. If it's shopping and lunch you want, catch the 10.02 from Chippy (Mon-Sat, route 50) and you can have over 3 hours in Stratford. If it's a matinee at one of the theatres (these are on Tuesdays, Thursdays and/or Saturdays), the 5.25pm back from Stratford gets into Chippy at 6.17. At 6.32 (6.28 on Saturdays) from West Street the 20A bus to Oxford is routed via Enstone and Charlbury, so will drop you at The Bell at 6.45. Chippy to Stratford takes about 50 minutes. Check times before you travel...

The connections at Witney for the bus to Cheltenham don't work so well. Most people (who can) will choose to drive to Witney and park there for the day: if you bus it all, you have to leave Charlbury at 8.10 (concessionary passes not valid except at weekends!) and spend 45 minutes waiting in Witney for the 9.30 to Cheltenham (route 853). The return connection is better: the 4pm bus from Cheltenham gets to Witney at 5pm, while the Worth's bus leave at 5.15pm (with a RH bus as fall-back at 6pm). All Witney times at Market Square. But check the timetables yourself first! There is no useful Sunday service. The journey takes an hour, but parking in Cheltenham is dreadful and the shopping excellent.

The curious route 243 from Combe to Witney via Stonesfield, Fawler, Finstock, Leafield and Crawley (3 times each way on Tuesdays and Fridays only) runs at the request of people in Combe and Stonesfield who wanted a direct connection to Witney. Why these people couldn't change in Charlbury, God only knows: there is already a bus an hour from Combe and Stonesfield to Charlbury, connecting with the services to Witney and Chipping Norton. (And Leafield already has one return service to Witney on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, as well as 11 buses a day Monday-Friday to Charlbury). Unfortunately each of the buses from Combe gets to Finstock 10 minutes after the direct bus to Witney has gone, so passengers have to continue on the tedious (and uncomfortable) route they are on. I don't think the people who devise these journeys realise how uncomfortable it is hurtling round bendy bumpy lanes in the back of a small bus.

When I mentioned bus times once before I was taken to task for not plugging the late buses from Oxford. So: buses leave Gloucester Green for Chipping Norton via Charlbury at 21.45 and 23.45 (they stop on the Slade), Monday to Saturday. The new RH Transport X9 service provides late buses from Witney at 20.00 and 23.20 from Market Square on Fridays and Saturdays only.

If you can't wait for the timetables to come through your door in January/February, you can pick one up from the bookshop.

Welcome to Cornbury Park

2008-12-03T15:53:00.005Z

Not many people realise that Cornbury Park is routinely open to the public free of charge on Tuesdays and Thursdays for 8 months of the year. The details below are taken from the English Heritage website. Owners of properties grant-aided by English Heritage have to provide for public access. (Note that access is to the park, not the house.)

Cornbury Park, Charlbury, Oxford, Oxfordshire OX7 3EH

400 acre deer park adjacent to Wychwood Forest containing newly restored/replanted beech avenues, ancient English oak trees and several ancient monuments.

Website Address: www.cornburypark.co.uk

Grant Recipient: The Lord Rotherwick

Access Contact: The Lord Rotherwick

Telephone: 01608 811276

Fax: 01608 811252

Email Address: estate@cpark.co.uk

Opening Arrangements:

1 March - 31 October: Tuesdays and Thursdays 10am - 4pm. Please note that a permit is required for access to the Park; permit must be applied for in advance. Organised educational access walks for groups by prior arrangement.

The buzzword is partnership

2008-11-21T17:07:00.009Z

I went to a meeting in Witney today organised by the District Council. There's something called the West Oxfordshire Strategic Partnership (WOSP), "made up of representatives of West Oxfordshire District Council and major agencies and sectors in the community". After much consultation, WOSP has produced a document called Shaping Futures: A Sustainable Community Strategy for West Oxfordshire. The meeting was to introduce this document to interested parties. It's still a document in the making, in the throes of the consultation process.

The word of the day is 'partnership'. There may be a new word tomorrow, but today we're partners. I think we used to be stakeholders, but obviously there was something wrong with that word. However, being a 'partner' makes me feel I work for John Lewis... It also suggests we are all equal, and I certainly don't find that is true.

For partnership to work, you need partners. Willing partners. This is the problem. Several impressive people described partnership in action, mostly in the context of the Rush Project which miraculously costs no extra money and teaches teenage girls to play football instead of throwing stones at cars. The presentation to the meeting was very impressive so I was surprised to find afterwards almost no mention of the project on the web, beyond the link above, and it appears never to have been mentioned in the local press. But it is a useful model, even if the outcome to date is extremely modest. For the Wychwood Project Nick Mottram also gave an impressive presentation. He has partners too.

However not everyone wants to work in partnership or sees the point. We have an uphill battle in Charlbury convincing small businesses and the self-employed that we/they should contribute to discussions and policy formation of this kind. A number of town/parish council were represented at the meeting, though not Charlbury: that's not to say that Charlbury didn't make a comprehensive submission along the way. But it seemed a pity that none of the town councillors was there: at the very least it was a good opportunity to network and see what other people are getting up to. (Eight people booked to attend but didn't turn up to collect their badges: four were from parish councils.)

The consultation process involved 1300 individuals and organisations including public bodies, voluntary and interest groups and all parish and town councils. I jotted that list down in the order it was read out, and two things struck me.

The first is that if you are important enough you can be consulted as an individual. In this process, you can just represent yourself. You and I live here and pay our taxes but I doubt if you have achieved that status for consultation purposes. Correct me if I'm wrong.

The second and more basic point is that consultation only works if those consulted are themselves representative and consulting. You see, the consultation is mostly done with intermediate bodies. True, they got MORI to give them feedback from a 'citizens panel' of 1000 West Oxonians, but most of us were completely unaware of this and won't feel consulted. They won't achieve public 'ownership' of the process this way. When your town or parish council was consulted, did it in turn consult you? Have you had a questionnaire? Have there been public meetings? That is the acid test. What input have you been offered?

The only example of how this works that I know about has to do with buses (again!). Look at this. Suppose that when the bus services in your village come up for tender, the county council finds that the service is proving very costly. Yes, some villagers rely on the bus to get to the doctor or the shop, but how many? Would it matter if the bus was withdrawn? Would a taxibus do instead? Or no bus at all? Is it a question of routes or timings -- are the buses going to the right places at the right times? Consultation to the rescue! The County Council writes to the local parish council and asks its opinion. Many (but not all) parish councils have PTRs (Public Transport Reps) who are supposed to keep their ear to the ground on transport issues, so they are also approached direct. OK, so the letter goes out. Here's the big question: given a threat to their local bus service, what proportion of parish councils will respond to the letter? The answer is half. Put it the other way round: half of all parish councils do not express an opinion when told their local bus service may be reduced or withdrawn. What else do they not express an opinion on?

Such is the nature of local participation. You may think that when you elect your local council, it is representing your interests. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. How can you tell? A lot of parish councils have no website. Some put their agendas and minutes on the web, others refuse. WODC offers free websites to all parish councils and voluntary bodies in the area: few take up the offer. The meetings of all councils have to be open to the public (though scarcely anyone ever attends to observe), and minutes can be consulted somewhere: perhaps at the clerk's home or in a public library. So it's all public information: it's just a question of whether the council makes it easier or harder for you to find out. Finstock displays the documents on notice boards so everyone can see them.

A surprising number of councils do not publish an email address even for the clerk. When it was suggested that councillors' contact details should appear alongside their names on a local website (the council itself does not have a website), at least one councillor expressed the view that he did not stand for election on the basis that people would be phoning or emailing him about council business. It's not that uncommon for councillors not to make their contact details public in this way, though of course they may be in the phone book. But when I told this story to one of the WODC officers, he shut his eyes and punched his head in frustration.

Charlbury Town Council publishes neither phone numbers, postal addresses nor email addresses of councillors on the town website: just contact details for the clerk. The parish council page on the Finstock village website (which is not accessible from the site's home page as far as I can tell) was last updated in June 2005, and gives no contact details for councillors. (And by the way, the pages for the WI and the parish church are 6 months old, and the opening hours for the village shop are out of date.)

So I wasn't sure about the 'strategic partnership' approach recommended by the meeting. If you raise your voice you will be heard. But does it matter that so many people are not 'represented' by an interest group, or 'consulted' by a parish council?

Well, actually yes. Because this is all part of the legitimisation process for a whole new planning framework which is to replace the old Local Plans we have all grown to love or hate. The 'partners' whose voices will undoubtedly be heard -- the developers, the landowners, the commercial and professional interest groups, the road lobby -- are busy preparing their submissions. The new LDF (Local Development Framework) that is to be in place in a couple of years is supposed to reflect what communities want: big stress is a laid on the wishes of the local community.

This may explain why Cornbury weedkilled and ploughed a field that had become something of a village amenity in Finstock, a couple of weeks after the fact of its amenity value was discussed at a public meeting where Lord Rotherwick was present. Ploughing it and planting a crop on it doesn't mean that Cornbury wants to return the field to agriculture: under the LDF they are in the process of seeking to have it zoned for housing. But meanwhile the recreational and amenity value to villagers must be extinguished to make the switch to housing seem more reasonable. The plough put paid to the local bee orchid colony too. Too late now to campaign to save it.

If your local landowner, an aggregate extraction company and a hypermarket are the only people among those consulted to respond, then it's their interests that will be heard loud and clear. Of course it isn't quite as bad as that, and it's clear above all that the WODC 0fficers are working hard to create a quality plan for the area out of the various inputs they receive. But as an example of democracy in action, the very local infrastructure is plainly not up to it. Thank God for the council staff who will protect us from the worst of its shortcomings. But just how effective can they be in the light of such massive failures of the democratic process?

We've broken a record with the Christmas trees

2008-11-11T08:00:00.006Z

The number of illuminated Christmas trees in the town centre this year will be about 100, the highest ever. Eleven new homes and businesses have taken brackets for the trees, bringing the total of trees ordered by Charlbury Business Community (CBC) from local grower Geoff Burroughs of Halcyon Farm to 95. The trees and brackets are sold at cost by the CBC as a public service.

The increased display follows a campaign by the CBC to encourage people to "help fill the gaps", particularly where the display is weakest -- as in Church Street, for instance, where the value of the real estate (around £20m for the whole street) is not reflected by a corresponding willingness to invest in a tree. Church Lane is also under-represented.

The overall increase is despite the failure of several people to order trees for existing brackets, including both estate agents and one pub. Let's hope these people acquire trees of their own in the meantime.

News and Things, who fell out with the CBC several years ago first over its policy towards the Co-op's new supermarket and then when the CBC would not support News and Things' application to convert the shop to a residential use, source their trees separately.

The CBC also provides a tree for the museum garden, and the Town Council provides trees on the Corner House.

Distribution of the trees takes place on Saturday November 29, when they will be delivered to 95 premises from a lorry. If you would like to help with the delivery (you'll need a pair of decent gloves, but you don't have to climb anywhere: the trees are left on doorsteps or in gardens as the lorry drives past) please phone Jon on 819117. Many hands make light work and the end result is widely regarded as a credit to the town.

Cornbury plans for Finstock

2008-11-08T08:21:00.003Z

Lord Rotherwick has written the following in the Autumn edition of the Cornbury Park newsletter, under the title "The Future of Finstock Field":

“I understand the concerns about returning the Finstock field to arable production but I am hopeful that, with careful discussion, we may be able to find a way forward that will fulfil not only our aims but also benefit Finstock as a whole. The Estate is keen to encourage open dialogue about the direction any development of the field should take and I believe that important lessons have been learnt about working with the neighbouring villages. I look forward to discussing these matters with the Parish Council.

The recent work undertaken at Church and Thatch Cottages on the Witney Road is a good example of a sympathetic renovation and development project. We have already secured the thatching straw in preparation for the exciting day when once again there will be a thatched cottage on this road. The new build house that will lie behind these two cottages will be complimentary to the project and to other estate cottages though we have yet to set a date for the building work to start.

Unlike other developers, Cornbury is able to take a much longer term view on any investment we make because we do not have to factor in the cost of the land. Our aims are to produce good design, high quality execution and to respect the concerns of the local community. I am a firm believer that development should not be purely for development’s sake.”

Rachel Carson re-incarnated

2008-11-01T22:54:00.008Z

Thanks, Brigid, for recommending "Another Kind of Silence" so strongly. I enjoyed every minute of it: Liz Rothschild's one-woman show about the life and work of Rachel Carson, brought to Ramsden village hall by the Wychwood Network, the local church and others. There were 99 people crammed into the hall, some from far afield and even from abroad.

LATE ANNOUNCEMENT! It turns out that around 80 people were turned away from Ramsden hall on Saturday. Because of copyright restrictions imposed by a forthcoming film about Rachel Carson, there can be no further performances of Another Kind of Silence beyond the end of this month. But there's one last chance if you are really keen, in Wallingford on Friday 28th November. The Wallingford contact for tickets is Mark Gray on 01491 651333. Up-to-date information here.

The play took me back. Friends and I in Oxford used to organise talks and meetings on topics like this. We could get a reasonable turnout in a church hall. No email in those days, but leaflets and posters did the job. One big difference, though. We were mostly in our thirties, as were our audiences: 20-45 was probably the typical age range. The odd oldie was an eccentric. Tonight's audience, and the audience of practically anything I go to in Charlbury, was the same crowd, thirty years older. It's a safe bet that when Clare Short comes to Charlbury later this month, scarcely anyone under 60 will be there to listen. Much the same was true of the excellent CADS production of Moll Flanders last month.

We went to Chichester Festival Theatre a few weeks ago to see a black African adaptation of The Magic Flute: the cast were mostly under 30 and it was a stunning theatrical experience. Did the Afro music and all these young black actors and singers pull in the local youth? Like hell. I scanned row after row of the audience, and without a shadow of doubt over 90 per cent were over 60.

Carry on like this and there will be no audiences for anything in a few years time. You were absolutely right, Rachel Carson, as were so many others before and after you. The big mistake we've all made was to think we'd leave the world a better place than we found it. Fat chance. Still, there are good plays to see, good books to read, good company to keep and good music to listen to. So it's not all bad. But what next?

Is this the best-kept secret of the year?

2008-09-17T15:21:00.003+01:00

Click here and you go to a list of reference works that you can browse completely free of charge, provided only that you are a member of the Oxfordshire libraries. (It is free to join, and takes all of a minute at any library.) Your membership number allows you to browse, among other things, the Oxford English Dictionary, Encyclopaedia Britannica (including the children's editions), Grove's Dictionary of Music, Grove's Art Online, the Times Digital Archive 1785-1985, Who's Who, the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography and a couple of hundred other works too.

Beat that!

Phoning the doctor? Who profits?

2008-08-22T11:20:00.010+01:00

If you have an 0844 number to call your GP, it's part of a system called called Surgery Line. We the patients pay for it at a flat rate of 5p a minute, including the time you spend waiting to listen. Someone in Charlbury reported recently on the Charlbury website that he waited 55 minutes to be connected and was charged £2.41 on his phone bill.

Here's how it's pitched to doctors:

Surgery Line
Two years in development - over a million patients using our systems - 96% of callers get through to their surgery first time. NEG Surgery Line™ has an ever growing presence in England, Scotland and Wales.
NEG Surgery Line™ is the bespoke telephony solution for GP Surgeries.
The revolutionary self-funding Telephone system for GP surgeries is no longer just a telephone system… With offerings for the hard of hearing, personal fax services, queue busting solutions in the waiting room and clinical indicator information generation.
Yes it’s free — Sounds good already!
In the majority of applications, NEG Surgery Line™ is completely self-financing! — Want to know how we do it? Please click here for an information pack.

On a flyer which you used to be able to download from their website, Surgery Line said:

You and your staff benefit
When a surgery switches to an 084 number, NEG will install and maintain the most efficient communications system on the market. You specify exactly what equipment you want to receive (from handsets to switchboards) for no extra charge. With your own 084 number, you keep about 2p from every call to re-invest in your practice, instead of BT making all the profit from calls to your surgery.

Here are the facts about 0844 numbers, quoted from the websites of companies selling them to businesses...

• 0844 Telephone Numbers allow calls to be diverted to your Landline FREE of Diversion Costs, or to Mobiles anywhere in the UK or around the world. The caller pays a Flat Call charge of 5 pence per minute for the call when calling from a UK Landline. 0844 numbers are used when a company wants to establish a National Presence in the UK. Callers in the UK pay the same call charges irrespective of National Geographic Location
On certain 0844 numbers you can receive up to 1.45 pence per minute back in revenue, if calls are diverted to a UK Landline.

• You can now add our virtual office services to your 0844 number to offer your customers an even better service. Virtual Receptionist gives them a list of options to key eg to be put through to a a specific department, Divert Plan automatically redirects their calls to a secondary number if the main destination is busy or is not answered, and Time/Day Plan diverts incoming calls to a different number at specific times eg in the evening and at weekends.

• An 0844 number is "pointed" at your landline. You can ask us to change where the 0844 number is pointed to which we will do at no charge. There are no charges to receive an 0844 call - in fact you receive a revenue split of 1 pence + VAT per minute. There is a one time set up fee of £9.99 + VAT. The caller pays a flat rate of 5 pence + VAT per minute when they dial an 0844 number.

• Ringing up the profits
Regular rebates, which represent your share of the revenue from your incoming calls, soon add up. They can help, for instance, to pay for your telephone costs, staff salaries or perhaps technical support services.

And click here for a report in The Times.

Charlbury's dinosaur footprints

2008-08-18T16:11:00.005+01:00

There have been some questions recently on the Charlbury website about dinosaur footprints in the Town Quarry. Are there/were there ever any? Could there have been? Could they be destroyed as part of any proposed development or change of use?

I sought professional advice on the matter! Here it is:

"Being Jurassic limestones, the rocks in Charlbury Quarry were laid down in Dinosaur times - Megalosaurus the first dinosaur to be scientifically described (Buckland, 1824) came from beds of the same age as the upper limestones (Taynton Stone) visible in the quarry.

The site is already protected, being an SSSI and any landowner (or anyone else) who tried to destroy it would be in trouble if they did so without permission from Natural England.

However, covering up dinosaur tracks is not destruction - it is probably the best method of preserving them from weathering. In this respect, the landowner could probably argue that keeping the public out by blocking access is also of benefit for preservation - boots running over tracks will wear them away."

There you have it.

Selective ploughing

2008-08-03T11:37:00.006+01:00

I was intrigued to hear (on Farming Today last week) an interview with a grain farmer in East Anglia. This year's wheat harvest, he was saying, will be very profitable. (Actually he didn't say that, because farmers never talk like that, even when they're banking millions. But he did say it is a very good year.) But problems loom, because of the massive increases in costs -- fuel, but also fertilisers and all those weedkillers. Most of the inputs into this year's harvest were at the pre-inflation prices: next year's harvest will be subject to all the increases. He said he didn't think any farmers would increase their wheat acreage for the coming year, because of the uncertain returns.

My thoughts immediately turned to the Cornbury plan to grow wheat on the allotments field in Finstock. Well, maybe it won't be wheat after all. Maybe, of course, they won't bother to plough it at all if there isn't an expectation of a sound return! It's not a very big field by modern standards. Then I remembered that the estate has applied for commercial zoning for a greenfield site on the edge of Charlbury (link here) and I went down to have a look. Had they, I wondered, sprayed this site too? After all, if getting crops off your land is the top priority, they should be getting it ready for the plough. And this isn't even land that people walk over: it doesn't have 'amenity' value in that obvious sense. Plus only a thin wire fence separates it from a big field that grows grain.

Well, no. It's still intact. Draw your own conclusions. I've drawn mine. Meanwhile the allotments field has been given a second dose of Roundup.

The Battle of Finstock

2008-07-28T10:20:00.011+01:00

I mentioned the proposals that have been put forward in Charlbury for use of part of the quarry site, and also for a greenfield site on Forest Road near the station. The Cornbury proposal for Finstock is far more radical...

Click here to see the map of the site in question, some 7.6 ha / 18.8 acres between the Witney Road and the High Street, though the strip of land alongside the Witney Road does not in fact belong to Cornbury and is not included in the proposal. Cornbury would like it zoned for "housing and community facilities". The field in question is generally known in the village as "the allotment field", though the allotments in question are long since disused.

Lord Rotherwick attended a meeting of the parish council on May 18, where about 100 villagers turned up to hear what was being proposed. Actually there was some confusion, as an entirely different site was to be discussed, but the chairman allowed a general public discussion of Cornbury's plans, and Lord Rotherwick went along with this. Very strong opinions were expressed, amounting to the fact that the allotment field is a crucial open site in the middle of the village, giving Finstock much of its character and offering a recreational facility for children and adults, including an invaluable space for dog walking.

Perhaps at this stage his lordship had not decided on his next step, since he made no mention of it at the meeting, but within about three weeks contractors were on the site spraying the entire area with Roundup, to the total surprise and amazement of villagers. Everything was killed, the site quickly went brown, and the dried out 'hay' was harvested. If I had gone out and dug up the bee orchids, deliberately trampled the skylarks' nests and destroyed the habitat for the (moderately rare) marbled white butterfly, I'd have been in big trouble. But in the name of farming...

We understand the field will now be ploughed.

I guess the thought that Finstock (and the district council and the planners) might argue that the allotment field is a village amenity, crucial to the character of the place and an invaluable social and environmental asset, is just too much for Lord Rotherwick, whose first manoeuvre in the Battle of Finstock is to plough the place up and keep the locals off as much of it as possible. Of course he can argue that the land is his to farm as he wishes (true) and that responsible farmers should do what they can to grow grain in the face of world shortages (probably true, but it does depend rather on what the world is actually doing with the grain grown), and of course he has to earn a living somehow (and most of us would prefer his idea of a country estate to a barbed-wire ring-fenced Russian oil baron's castle visited occasionally by helicopter and with CCTV cameras at frequent intervals round the fence!).

We shall now wait and see whether the only right of way across the field is ploughed up for the winter. It doesn't have to be, it runs in the direction the field will be ploughed, and at present it is good grassy going all year round. Let's hope he doesn't do it: I don't think he's malicious, but it might not occur to him... He would do well to cultivate friendly relations with the parish council if he is to get anywhere with his plans, and the parish council could at least put in a word for that footpath at this stage before relations sour any further. In fact, Cornbury could be asked to leave a couple of metres unploughed round the edge of the field (some of it is overhung by pretty massive hedges anyway, and some runs alongside gardens) so people can continue to enjoy walking round. Please, parish council, get that letter off before it is too late.

Not interested in Charlbury or Finstock? Click here for list of West Oxfordshire towns and villages, so you can check what your local landowners would like to do in your vicinity! You'll find that Cornbury applied in June for 2.75 acres in Ascott to be zoned for housing, for example. A lot of people want to develop their land in Stonesfield, too, for various uses.