The Wildwood Muntjac deer are often seen in daytime or heard close by barking loudly to others
Foxgloves apear in abundance for a couple of years after tree thinning having lain dormant for decades
Everywhere is to be seen the humps and bumps left by earlier inhabitants and I have set myself the task of making some sense of them.
The Wildwood edge is defind by a medieval ‘woodbank’ and ditch
It is not just the visible landscape changes that bring me into contact with the ‘lost tribes’ of the Wildwood, but the tantalising artefacts lying on the woodland floor awaiting a keen eye to rediscover them. These objects range from fossils, Stone Age tools and discarded pottery sherds, discarded some thousands of years ago with no thought that someone far in the future would show even the slightest interest in them.
It will be my pleasure as the months roll by to share some of my discoveries with you, and you will be surprised at what has survived from the lives our enigmatic ancestors.
It is good to see the media seemingly taking more interest in traditional crafts these days, let us hope this is a continuing trend.
The wheel is probably man’s most important technological discovery. A Sumarian pictogram dated 3500BC is the earliest reference for the wheel. By 2000BC man was making spoked wheels yet the earliest pictorial reference we have of a wheel driven lathe seems to be from the 15th century.
From classical times man has harnessed wind and water to work heavy machinery, to relieve him of hard physical labour and to speed up production. A Roman settlement C.200AD in southern France boasted sixteen water mills for grinding corn. It may be that this form of motive power was used to drive lathes also but if it was there seems to be no record of the fact. If this were the case, it would have probably have been the exception rather than the rule.