Sunday at Bill's Mother's: 14th April 2024
Light in the valley: the new Wyming Brook. Plus brief news round up.
Morning. Wyming Brook Drive opens this weekend, after a winter of tree felling and ring barking. In some places, the steep valley looks very similar to the years of Green Flag awards as one of the best green spaces in the country. But in the deep dark gorge by the brook, where I once heard people say they expected to see dwarves from Lord of the Rings hiding in the undergrowth, the sun has returned, and it feels very, very different. I visited last week to see and learn about the new look for the old valley.
There’s also a brief round up of a few things you should know about, and selected events from our huge What’s On Out There listings service.
We’re ticking along towards the 250 pocket-money-paying full subscribers we need to expand our coverage and hopefully launch some more special features.
"Fascinating posts. Glad to support you. Thanks!" said paying subscriber Liz. Thanks to you too Liz! You and your 213 fellow full members are very much part of this new social enterprise for the Outdoor City.
You can join Liz by supporting this publication just below.
Tree Party
A heads up for a celebration at Banner Cross, as the first new street tree for generations was planted last week. Nicola Gilbert was awarded the Elm New Horizon tree for her work as a voluntary tree warden by Amey, and the council will be consulting on planting a further eight trees nearby next autumn or winter. The celebration for anyone who happens by is next Saturday (20th) at 9.30 am.
Rat Rap
I spoke to local author Joe Shute this week about his new Stowaway book, which makes the case very strongly that we should rethink the urban rat, after centuries of persecution. I’ll have the post about that chat very soon, but in the meantime Joe is giving a talk about the book at Sheffield Central Library on April 24th.
Urban Nature Fundraiser
Two brilliant urban nature reserves need our help: Sunnybank near Broomhall and Crabtree Pond near Pitsmoor have a week-long fundraiser coming (starting on Thursday 18th April) to try and raise £20,000 to improve and maintain the sites. Every pound raised by Sheffield people and organisations will be matched by another £1 from national businesses and philanthropists working through the Big Give charity.
The New Wyming Brook
One of our early posts covered the changes to come at Wyming Brook. I was warned by land managers Sheffield & Rotherham Wildlife Trust that it might look drastic in the short term. So after a winter of tree work, with around 900 larch trees felled or ring-barked in the Wyming Brook Nature Reserve, does it?
I’m walking down the old Wyming Brook Drive with reserve manager for SRWT Paul Jarman, who took me round in the autumn of 2022 when yellow larch needles dusted the track.
Those trackside larches are gone now, felled and taken away for timber to help towards the costs of an operation SRWT legally had to carry out, by order of a government Statutory Plant Health Notice (SPHN) due to an outbreak of Phytophthora ramorum, a fungus-like disease of larch trees that spreads easily via windblown rain and watercourses.
I’ve spoken for years to woodland managers and ecologists who tell me that wildlife constantly adapts and takes advantage of the landscape around it, given the chance. And that’s pretty much the plan for the new Wyming Brook.
Wyming Brook Drive was originally developed as a road to reveal a recreational destination for families under a Sheffield Council employment scheme over 100 years ago. The landscape by the drive was largely planted, with larch and spruce and other forestry trees to sell as a wood crop years later, or decorative trees for visitors to enjoy. Cars were barred many years ago, but it was still a hugely popular walking, running and cycling route.
Walking down last week, I think it still will be. There are gaps in the trackside wood every now and then, and you can see the rocks across the brook now. It was feared that Sweet Chestnut trees would have to be removed along with the larch, as the species is also susceptible to the disease. But the veteran Sweet Chestnuts up on the steep bank south of the drive remain, following discussions with the Forestry Commission.
Paul shows me how the car park has been improved, with new bike racks, easier steps, and rails to protect erosion of the bank down to the brook, and a height restrictor to deter fly tipping. And he adds that SRWT have carried out several desktop and field archaeology surveys to hopefully preserve the history of the site during felling.
SRWT have had to use their own funds to complete all the work, as the money raised by sales of felled larch only covered part of the operational costs, he tells me. To protect the gorge itself, machines were only used for trackside tree extraction, and much of the larch was ‘felled to waste’ or, when well away from paths, ring barked to kill the tree and leave it standing for some years.
Between them these methods will provide homes and food for insects like beetles, birds like owls and woodpeckers, and for fungi and nesting woodland birds too.
Over the next years, scrub woodland will develop with thorns and more bushes like Bilberry and Holly appearing, and Paul hopes to see songbirds and flycatchers in the more open woodland. Conifers like Scots Pine and Western Hemlock remain, along with some of the broad leaf trees that have already taken root, like Rowan, Oak and Silver Birch.
The gaps from fallen trees look messy, there’s no doubt. But as we pass we see and hear woodland birds like Song Thrushes, Wrens and Robins going about their spring business, and there seems no doubt that the new environment may well be full of more life than the dark larch woods of old.
Near the bend down to the reservoir, the scene is strakly different. A planation of close planted Sitka Spruce has been clear felled, as part of the SRWT long term management plan. The trust carried out this work at the same time as the larch removal to save on costs, but this is where the word ‘drastic’ really applies, looking as it does like a bomb site, as described by critic of the work Bo Khan last year.
But Sitka is non native and when close planted has poor value for wildlife, Paul explains, so the site will be planted with native broad leaf trees next winter. The felling at Wyming Brook is “a short term scar, for long term benefit,” he says.
As yet, only the Sitka plantation looks drastic to my eyes, admittedly attuned as they are to that ‘nature adapts’ argument. Then we turn up the winding brookside path, climbing over roots and boulders and mud back up to the Wyming Brook entrance, where people in years past would take photos and gasp at the moody Scandinavian feel of the spectacle on Sheffield’s doorstep.
Most of the dark trees are gone now, the light is in, and the possibility of glimpsing dwarves or elves seems much diminished. A group of women pass by, and I ask them what they make of the new Wyming Brook.
“I like it,” one of them says. She adds they’ve been coming here for quite a few years. “It’s a nice day and you can see it. If It was a nice day in the past, you wouldn't know.”
The light will bring in more birds and allow the native Rowan and Oak trees that were struggling under the tall conifers to grow and get away. And as we climb we find woodland flowers like Wood Sorrell* Golden Saxifrage and Forget-me-nots flourishing already. And below the trunks and branches of felled trees on the opposite bank, the light by the brook will develop waterside edge habitats that will bring in more insects and birds.
But it looks so very different. This, I think, is where anyone with fond memories of this place in darker times might be alarmed, and will have to readjust.
Paul is keen to say he isn’t gladdened, or miserable, about the changes he’s seen on his reserve.
“Nothing stays the same in nature, does it? I’m interested now to see how this place will evolve.”
Not Wood Anemone as in an earlier edition of this piece, correction by reader Linda Moran - thanks Linda!
Selected What’s On Out There (from Sun 14th April)
See our full listings service here. It’s updated all the time. What great value!
Sun 14th - Steel City Trail 10 - 10km (approx) trail run at Whirlow
Sun 14th - Sheffield Triathlon Club - Aquathlon at Westfield School (400m swim / 6km run - £10)
Mon 15th - Birds of Wadsley and Loxley Common talk, Wadsley Church Hall (£3/£3.50)
Mon 15th - Volunteer Morning at Whirlow Brook Park
Mon 15th - Graves Park Digging Deeper For All - Magical Meadows talk (Lees Hall golf club)
Weds 17th - SRWT User Forum and Walk - Crabtree Ponds
Weds 17th / Thurs 18th - Support for Landowners - Woodland Creation and Ancient Woodland Management webinar
Weds 17th - Social Walk from Longshaw (5m)
Weds 17th - Sheffield Ramblers Walk - ‘Half’ Sheff Round Walk (more or less) (10m - meet Dore station)
Thurs 18th - SRWT Volunteer Day- Blacka Moor
Thurs 18th - Green City Action Grimesthorpe community allotment volunteer days
Fri 19th - Sheffield Cycle Tours from Russell's Bicycle Shed (Neepsend) - to Rotherham
Sat 20th - Parkwood Springs Conservation Morning (meet Shirecliffe Rd entrance 10am)
Thanks for reading. If you’ve been passing by for a few weeks, can you join our social enterprise by signing up as a full subscriber? An annual subscription to It’s Looking A Bit Black Over Bill’s Mother’s costs less than a modern recreation of Angela Rayner’s Daily Mail exposé cushions.
Remember, readers! F.F.S! Forward to Friends, and Subscribe!
:
I used to go to Wyming Brook as a child in the 1950's. We'd go by bus and spend the day there. My father would pick us up after work in the family small van. 3 kids rattling round in the back all the way to Attercliffe. It was certainly more open then. Later in the year we would pick pounds of bilberry for pies ( precious bilberry eked out with apples ). Whisper it quietly but my father used to take a bag for leaf mold too. Not much as it all had to be carried home. Happy days
Wyming Brook and the surrounding area look enchanting! I must try and find a way there by public transport - I don’t want to drive.
Is the flower below the “What’s on” postings a wood anemone or a wood sorrel? Either way, it’s so pretty! Woodland floors have a particular charm in the spring, and I’m glad that some of the evergreens are being replaced with deciduous trees, as this gives the little things a chance to shine!