Simon English
England Revisited

On a beech tree on the right going north up the Easebourne lane out of Midhurst.

On a small holly that grows east side of the lane in the position that the original Beech tree stood. This was blown down in a gale in the winter of 1971 as one of the local flag finders wrote to tell me. The holly still has pins from my visit in 1992. The deep sunken lane running north out of Easebourne must have once had its sandy banks covered in dry stone cladding into which oak, beech and wych elm had been planted. By 1971 these had grown to a great size overarching a deep leafy lane with the roots encasing the stones and a green light filtering through the ferns.

Where the mature trees have been felled by storms the stones and bank have been pulled out and not been replanted and has had the hole filled by volunteer Hollies. However where mature and old trees have been sawn down, the beech stump that was there in 1971 has still not rotted although the leaf litter on the sawn top has nurtured a wych elm sapling with roots into the patches of rot in the old wood beneath.

The canopy, though reduced, is still lovely as are the ferns and fungi, but marking pegs on the fields either side imply possible development.
Points 71 & 73