Simon English
England Revisited

On a beech tree on the north face of a wood 1/2 mile N.W. of Langley. (S.W. of Haydon Bridge)

On the trunk of what might well be the same beech tree just inside the high dry stone north wall that completely encircles this hilltop wood. In 1971 the wood, as far as I remember, was a mix of Scots pine and Beech with thin trunks standing about 60 feet high all planted at the same time in what must have been a walled sheep field. Since then the trees in the middle have been felled and replanted thick with spruce which are already about 25 feet high. The beech trees that stand on the edge of this plantation have been left standing either as they had no value as timber or to act as a shelter belt for the new young trees. Standing alone without the original trees they must have been very exposed and taken quite a battering and do not have the full shape of beeches in sheltered parkland.

The field to the north drops away into the valley. This pasture is, at the top, still fairly thickly covered with tussocks of reed amongst which graze sheep. At the bottom stands the farmhouse, which in 1971 was occupied by a tenant farmer but now is much improved with modernised buildings and inclusion of the burn into garden design. The new owners kindly drove us up to point 3.

Sheep here are on the rough high pastures, in the bottom of the valley the rich soils supports mixed arable with cereals grown near the river. This must have been valuable farm land for centuries. Hadrian’s wall runs along the skyline on the far side of the valley. The land to the south was worth going to a great deal of trouble defending.
Points 7 & 3