Fran Halsall, Author at Sheffield Woodland Connections

200 celebrate the Western Road Memorial trees

23 of the War Memorial trees on Western Road in Crookes, Sheffield, are due to replaced as part of the Streets Ahead PFI contract to upgrade the city’s highways. Other memorial trees on adjoining roads are also under threat. Most have been condemned because they are displacing kerb stones and damaging pavements, making access more difficult.

Standard solutions exist to address these problems, solutions that are routinely used in many cities but sadly not in Sheffield.

While stone-built monuments are given protection in law – and desecrating them is a crime – these trees have no special legal status and the Council stand by their decision to fell. They intend to plant new Memorial Trees elsewhere in the city; many think that these trees, invested with so much symbolism, cannot simply be replaced.

Planted a year after World War I ended, these trees mark a particular moment in our collective history and there is nothing more apt than a living memorial to honour the dead.

Today 200 people gathered to celebrate these trees, now in their 99th year, and to peacefully ask Sheffield City Council to reconsider their plans to fell them.

For more information on these and other notable trees that are facing the chop visit: Save Sheffield Trees.

Photography workshop with Friends of Gillfield Wood on 12th April

This Easter holiday take to look at Gillfield Wood, in Totley, through the lens of your camera focusing on big trees, quarries, footbridges, bluebells and other spring flowers. Fran Halsall will be providing instruction to help you get that perfect shot.

Two sessions will run; 10am to 12:30pm looking at camera technique, and 1pm to 3:30pm considering composition and lighting. Limited places are available so advance booking is essential – please register with Paul: paulatfogw@gmail.com

A small charge of £5 per individual (£3 for members of FoGW) will be collected on the day. Please bring a packed lunch if you intend to stay the whole day.

Check that your own insurance covers your camera, bring an extra battery and any other equipment you might need.

Meet: bottom of Totley Hall Lane at 9:45am.

Spring 2018 walk dates

Come join us for our next walks in Ecclesall Woods, which will be taking place on:

Sunday 29th April at 2pm
Sunday 20th May at 10.30am and 2.30pm, as part of the ‘Spring in the Woods’ event.

To see photographs and comments from previous walks visit our Facebook page. To book a place on the walk please use the contact form, stating how many places you would like to reserve and the walk date.

Meet 10 minutes before the walk start time outside the main entrance to the Discovery Centre, Ecclesall Woods, Abbey Ln, Sheffield, S7 2QZ.

Planting disease-resistant elms

A national trial has been launched to help find disease-resistant elms that will be able to survive future outbreaks of Dutch Elm Disease. Sheffield’s Greno Woods nature reserve was chosen as one of the test sites and the planting of 24 saplings took place this morning with the help of the Sheffield & Rotherham Wildlife Trust and a group of volunteers.

The project is led by Dr David Herling, a leading expert on elms, with the aim of establishing eight experimental plantations across the UK in a variety of climate and soil conditions. Greno Woods is the latest site to be included in the initiative and the costs were covered by a crowdfunding campaign, launched by local elm-enthusiast Paul Selby.

Some of the varieties chosen for the elm plantation are so new that they have yet to be properly named. It will be roughly ten years before there is enough tree growth to judge the project’s outcome, however it is wonderful to see the early stages of attempts to reintroduce this iconic tree species back into the British landscape. If successful the experiment will definitively establish which elm to plant in what location to ensure the best chance of surviving Dutch Elm Disease.

Planting our ‘Legacy Tree’

The Woodland Trust kindly offered a ‘Legacy Tree’ to any Tree Charter branch that wanted to plant one. Sheffield Woodland Connections requested a hornbeam and we planted it at the end of January in a new area of woodland being created on Whirlow Playing Fields, off Limb Lane in Sheffield.

The site adjoins the Limb Brook section of Ecclesall Woods and has been planted by Sheffield’s Community Woodland team with help from many volunteers. Although it does not look like much at the moment, several hundred new trees were planted in one day. It will look very different in just a few years time.

Our hornbeam sapling is keeping good company, as it is planted only a few metres away from the Save Dore, Totley and Bradway Trees group’s ‘Legacy Tree’. Both have a metal plaque to help identify them.