In the next month or so Alan Walker and the BCA woodland volunteers will be out and about working on the Woodland Glades, in Grin Low,. giving them their all important annual cut back. These beautiful wild flower glades, that we have created and work hard to preserve and maintain, are becoming all the more important in the light of the recent news about the loss of much of our remaining wild flower meadows to intensive farming.

The woodland glade areas are associated with the 17th & 18th century lime burning industry on the hillside. Below each kiln is a wide area where waste limestone ash was tipped. Slowly the lime tips were colonised by lime loving species of herbaceous plants and grasses such as Northern Marsh Orchid, Burnet Saxifrage, Globe flower, Mountain Everlasting, Creeping willow and Juniper creating a unique habitat which unlike the neighbouring farm land is not grazed or fertilized by animal livestock.

The area of Grin Low was designated by the Nature Conservancy Council (now Natural England) as a site of Special Scientific Interest in 1983 recognising the Juniper as the only surviving example in Derbyshire and was re-designated by Natural England in 1981 under the Wildlife and Countryside act.

With continuing advice from Natural England it was recognised over 15 years ago that without careful management the glades would be encroached by rank species of grasses and invasive trees species such as Birch and Ash and these valuable areas could be lost.

Since then a project which was originally funded by Natural England has seen the glades annually cut using power brush cutters and the cuttings raked and removed from the glade. This is important to prevent the thin soil layer from becoming too enriched and therefore able to support invasive species.

This is a highly labour intensive time and the BCA woodland volunteer group are invaluable in assisting with the grass clearing and cutting back saplings on the glade edges.

We have now bought back eight or so glades to good condition which total around 7 acres of the 100 acres of Grin Low wood and hope to enlarge some of these areas further. Sadly funding is not currently available for this project which makes the need for volunteer help even more important so if anyone has a few hours to spare anytime in September and October please contact Alan at Poole’s Cavern visitor centre on 01298 26978.

June Noble has produced an excellent guide to the Wild Flowers of Grin Low accompanied by some wonderful photographs by Lyn. The Guide is available from Poole's Cavern Visitor Centre for £3.00.

A Frog Orchid, one of the many wild flowers that thrive on the lime rich soil in the glades in Grin Low

It was a perfect sunny summers Sunday afternoon, ideal for the guided walk through the wild flower glades of Grin Low, led by June Noble and ably supported by husband Lyn for members of the Buxton Civic Association.

The woodland glade areas in Grin Low, are associated with the 17th & 18th century lime burning industry that used to dominate the hillside. Below each kiln is a wide area where waste limestone ash was tipped. Slowly the lime tips were colonised by Lime loving species of herbaceous plants and grasses such as Northern Marsh Orchid, Burnet Saxifrage, Globe flower, Mountain Everlasting, Creeping willow and Juniper creating a unique habitat which unlike the neighbouring farm land is not grazed or fertilized by animal livestock.

As well as being able to see a wide range of species, June gave members tips on wild flower identification and spoke about the importance of the glades, explaining how the management of the glades by giving them an annual cut using power brush cutters and the cuttings raked and removed from the glade, is vital in preventing the thin soil layer from becoming too enriched and therefore able to support invasive species.

Lyn and June have produced an excellent introductory guide to "The Wild Flowers of Grin Low Country Park" which is available from Poole's Cavern Visitor Centre.

"I knew he watched from among the foliage"

In younger days I walked the woods,
That spoke the language of birds and earth
And searched for him whose name I did not know.
Yet even then, in childhood games
I knew he watched from among the foliage,
His leaf mask smiling through
The scented blossom
Of those joyous infant years.

In the brook I paddled
Near my grandma’s cottage,
Forging up-stream in search of its source.
A waterfall I found
That tumbled into a pool,
Where trout flashed
Like silver stars
In the depths of its dark mystery.

This he showed me,
Him whose name I did not know.
This fountain of knowledge;
This secret fount of childhood dream
That seems strangely blurred now,
With the passage of two score years.

Yet still I glimpse him
In woodland glades
Or in lonely copses
That crown our hollow hills.
Now we smile in recognition:
Yet through the ferny gloom
I witness in his wise eyes
A sense of loss,
Deeper than
The void of space
And the passage of dying stars.

YOUNGER GENERATION STEPS IN

A packed AGM at Buxton Civic Association’s Visitor Centre paid tribute to retiring Board members and welcomed younger ones to take on new roles and responsibilities.

Chairman Paul Dinsdale covered a wide range of topics reflecting the great number of responsibilities currently undertaken by the Association’s special interest groups. These include the Woodlands Group, chaired by Peter Phillipson, who gave an illustrated talk on the work done on paths, stiles, walling and steps in Grin Low and Corbar as well as reporting on storm damage which cost several thousand pounds last year alone. He emphasized that trees fallen or felled from necessity, left space in the canopy allowing young saplings to regenerate, while fallen timber provides an invaluable natural habitat for insects and small animals.

Vice-Chairman Mike Monaghan spoke of the progress being maintained in sourcing good quality Fair Trade and local produce for the popular Café at the Cavern and of our aim to recycle water where appropriate. He also applauded our achievement in gaining the County Council’s coveted Environmental Quality Mark, testifying to the Association’s overall environmental awareness and initiatives. He also complimented Paula Pickering, manager of the highly successful Café at the Cavern, which has recently again been awarded the highest five star rating by Council Environmental Health officers.

The Community and Membership Group is now lead by Mike Wilde, and is becoming involved in a wide range of community initiatives and projects, as well as organizing events for members and the public, and raising awareness of the Association and its work. In this, he is ably assisted by directors Alyson Phillips, who is also responsible for the production of the Association’s excellent Newsletter, and Tim Middleton.

Both Planning and Corporate Affairs Groups were mentioned by the Chairman who detailed recent changes. Hilary Lawrence, formerly Vice-Chairman and Chair of Planning, has stepped down from those roles, and the Chairman paid tribute to her support, and her long, dedicated and enthusiastic service. Stephen Robinson, also a member of the Association’s Planning Group, has decided not to stand for re- election after many years as a director.

The meeting elected three new directors, Jonathan Davey, Owen Longden, and Brian Lawrence.

The Chairman thanked the Association’s staff, volunteer directors and committee members, and all those involved in supporting and running the Association, which was in a healthy financial position, its turnover approaching half a million, and currently employing around thirty staff.

Following the formal business of the AGM, members enjoyed refreshments, followed by an excellent and stimulating presentation by Dai Larner, Executive Director of High Peak and Staffs Moorlands Councils, on the processes involved and problems faced in the preparation of a new Local Plan.

For more information on the work of Buxton Civic Association, and how to join, please contact us on 01298 26978, or at communications@buxtoncivicassociation.org.uk

More about our bluebells

Below is the list of 21 different species of tree that you can see in Grin Wood.

How many of these have you seen in Grin Wood?

Some photographs from the afternoon.

The rain held off just long enough to enable thirty members Buxton Civic Association to undertake a guided talk and walk in Grin woods to learn how to recognise the different trees that grow there.
Under the very able guidance of Angela Wills and Mike Monaghan, the afternoon started off with a talk about the history of the woods explaining that they were planted in the late eighteenth century to hide the scars from the limestone extraction and lime burning that had gone on on Grinlow for many years.
Initially planted with Beech, there were now some 21 species of trees that could be found in the woods, and Mike and Angela provided examples of the leaves, bark and fruit of many of them to help with their identification.
During a break in the weather Angela and Mike then led a guided walk through the woods and members were able to see how many of the trees they could identify.
It was a thoroughly enjoyable and informative afternoon and everyone is looking forward to the next guided walk on 20th July which will be about the wild flowers of the glades in Grin woods.

A badger vaccination programme can help protect the wildlife population from Bovine TB

Buxton Civic Association are pleased to announce that we are working closely with Derbyshire, Wildlife Trust, Derbyshire Country Council, Badger Trust, and a number of local land owners to support the work that Derbyshire Wildlife Trust are doing to help protect wildlife from the risks of being infected by Bovine TB, by carrying out a badger vaccination programme in the High Peak and Derbyshire.

The plan is to carry out the badger vaccination programme over a period of five years, which will help to support the build up of immunity in the Derbyshire badger population and contribute to reducing the risk to the badgers and other wildlife of contracting bovine TB.

Keep an eye and an ear out for further updates on our website www.buxtoncivicassociation.org.uk, on local radio, and for more information on the work the Derbyshire Wildlife Trust are doing on Badger Vaccination go to their website at www.derbyshirewildlifetrust.org.uk.

Fancy some good healthy exercise and also helping maintain the Association’s woodlands, then why not volunteer for the Woodland Working Group? The Group meets on the last Monday of the month, or on an alternative Monday if the last Monday is a Bank Holiday, at 9.30 am at Poole’s Cavern.

Most of the Group’s work is carried out in Grin Wood, but on occasions work is also undertaken in one of the other woods maintained by the Association. The work is not over strenuous and does not involve the use of power tools. For example, a typical morning’s work might involve assisting with the clearing of grass cuttings from the glades or the cutting back of saplings on the glade edges. Other work has included clearing paths and drainage channels and making bird boxes. We usually finish by midday.

Tools are provided, but you do need to come suitably dressed and be prepared to get dirty. If you are interested give us a call on 01298 26978 and ask to speak to Alan Walker.

John Gunn and Ian Fairchild, School of Geography Earth & Environmental Sciences, University of Birmingham, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK

In common with virtually all limestone caves Poole’s Cavern has an environmental history that spans millions, of years. The Carboniferous Limestone’s in which the cave is formed are about 345 million years old and water began to circulate slowly through them when they were still covered by many metres of sandstones and mudstones, the rocks commonly referred to as the Millstone Grit. The water dissolved away the limestone, following preferred flow routes (‘inception horizons’) and forming small channels. As the overlying rocks were removed by erosion more water was able to flow underground enlarging the conduits through which the water was flowing. Poole’s Cavern grew from a conduit that formed on inception horizons above an important volcanic layer, the Lower Millers Dale Limestone. During one or more of the cold periods that are commonly called ‘Ice Ages’ large amounts of melt-water flowed through Poole’s Cavern from sinks the location of which has now been lost to a resurgence that has also been removed by subsequent erosion. At the same time as this was happening new conduits fed by new stream-sinks on Stanley Moor were developing along inception horizons below the lava and discharging at the Wye Head and Otter Hole springs. These captured water from the older conduits and now the Poole’s Cavern stream only flows following wet weather. However, even when the stream is dry the cavern receives inputs of water that have infiltrated through soils and percolated through the rocks. It is these waters that form the flowstones, stalactites and stalagmites which are collectively referred to by scientists as speleothems and which provide information on past environments.

When studying archives of the past such as ice cores, marine sediments, or cave deposits, we seek to interpret the past using various characteristics that stand for, or act as proxies for the original environmental or climatic conditions. The past two decades have seen major developments in our understanding of a variety of proxies found in terrestrial archives. A particularly radical advance has happened in the study of speleothems. Researchers have used many different approaches including chemical analyses of the speleothems, working out how fast they grew, making theoretical models of processes in the cave and the overlying soils, carrying out laboratory experiments and monitoring processes in modern caves. One of the speakers, Ian Fairchild published the first textbook on this subject in 2012 with his former Birmingham colleague Andy Baker.

Poole’s Cavern is a special place for a number of reasons including its archaeology, but also because it is located under historic lime workings. The water passing through the ground becomes highly alkaline and this results in some very unusual speleothems. Usually when a stalactite or stalagmite forms, the chemical process is one of carbon dioxide emerging from the drip water but in very alkaline water the opposite happens, the stalagmite growth depending on carbon dioxide dissolving in the cave water. Under alkaline conditions growth is around ten times quicker than normal and the beautiful tall stalagmites of the Poached Egg Chamber, growing at several millimetres per year, have been created since this industrial pollution. For similar reasons calcareous precipitates have filled the bottom of the valley at Brook Bottom on the outskirts of Buxton.

We have used Poole's Cavern as a training ground for undergraduates doing their first research projects as well as for more sustained graduate research. We now know much more about matters such as the pattern of air circulation in the cave and its effects on radon and carbon dioxide levels and its control on the rates of stalagmite growth. Specific effects related to undiscovered cave passages beyond the end of the cave can be felt. Although some information on past rainfall has been deduced from study of the stalagmites, their main intrinsic scientific interest is to study chemical processes under alkaline (high pH) conditions including transport of trace metals and changes in abundance of natural isotopes. The cave maintains very consistent conditions of temperature, humidity and rate of dripping water which would be very difficult to achieve in the built environment. For such reasons, Poole’s Cavern has proved to be a marvellous natural laboratory.