Life’s a Big Beech and then …..?

1st February 2025 – Stewardship Saturday

Big Beech - the tallest native tree in the wood and the footpath requiring attention to save the tree

Today is our first Stewardship Saturday of the new year. It is also the Gaelic festival of Imbolc marking the start of spring and the rebirth of the year. Christian culture has adopted many formerly pagan festivals, so you could suggest that Imbolc represents a kind of natural resurrection. What better way to celebrate Imbolc (be ye pagan or Christian) than to try to bring back to life a centuries old tree? Big Beech.

I discussed what we were hoping to do with Big Beech in my 21/1/25 post “Saving Big Beech”. Well today we are intent upon turning fine words into actions. Many people see a tree without leaves and assume it to be dead. I know of one such tree, a birch, declared dead by a tree surgeon after one of our increasingly hot dry summers. He offered to take it down, but I suggested to the owners that they wait until the following spring. Low and behold their birch tree came back to life. All it needed was water.

I am confident that if I can resurrect a relatively young birch, why not cast my spell over a whopping great beech tree? So with a barrow load of tools four of us set off through the wood to see what we can do.

Arriving at Big Beech I point out what is to be done. A week earlier I dug a run-off ditch to carry surface run-off away from the steep and heavily trampled footpath towards the very base of Big Beech. This will supply extra water to the tree's roots and reduce soil erosion down the steep path. A good start, but there is much more to be done.

The run-off ditch taking surface run-off from the path to the base of Big Beech

Three of us (Mark, Joel and myself) set-to moving sawn-up chunks of a large limb which fell off Big Beech some months ago. We arrange them to form a wall of wood across the top of the slope. Hopefully this will intercept surface water and reduce soil erosion. It will also serve as a barrier discouraging visitors from walking along the path here.

In the meantime Geoff sets to work cutting an alternative path through the brush for visitors to take. This one will be 10 or 20 metres further from the tree. It will also provide a better viewing position for appreciation of Big Beech.

I was recently told a story by Dan, about him directing a young man into the wood, who was keen on climbing a big tree. Thirty minutes later Dan got a call from the lad saying he couldn't find it. When asked where he was, he replied “On a big wooden bench at the bottom of the wood.”

“Well if you look up you will see it right in front of you.”

After a brief pause the lad responded “Oh yes......”

It was hidden in plain sight.

Once the logs have been moved into place we set about barrowing the soil removed from the runoff ditch, into the area behind them. The expectation is that this soil will trap rainfall/surface run-off and allow it to soak down to the tree roots beneath. In time plants will root in this soil, whilst soil invertebrates will gather and burrow deep into the barren subsoil, letting water and air get to the tree roots. We won't know if we've been successful until the tree produces leaves and even then not until we have had signs of life throughout the whole of the hot dry summer ahead of us.

A second, third and fourth pile of logs is then added at intervals further down the slope. Eventually we should be able to add more soil, leaf litter and anything biodegradable behind these log piles to encourage further plant and invertebrate colonisation of the barren soil beneath Big Beech.

One of the frustrating challenges of managing a nature reserve which also hosts thousands of visitors is that our piles of logs might be disturbed by playing children. With this in mind we are also rerouting the A to Z trail away from this area of the wood, so if you want to see it then you will have to look for it. Management of people is every bit as important as the management of the wildlife.

The seriously eroded footpath and exposed roots of Big Beech prior to reparations (seen from below)

Footpath reparation to prevent erosion and encourage water retention around the roots of Big Beech (from above)

David Horne