Wardens Trust

admin — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 09:01:19 +0000

SUMMER HAS ARRIVED ALONG WITH THE RAIN!!!!!!!

We are having an extrememly busy season and it is fantastic to see so many people enjoying the peace and space at Warden’s.

News updates:

We are now providing a Wednesday Bath Day.

We now have a fully accessible bathroom and if you, or someone you know, needs this facility please do not hesitate to ring on 01728 635731.

WARDEN’S SEASIDE FUN DAY

Please make a note in your diary that The Friend’s of Wardens are holding a Fete.

Saturday 23rd July 2011 – 2pm – 5pm.

Lots of games, competitions, refreshments and stalls

The Countryside

admin — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 17:04:43 +0000

Often nowadays there is much talk amongst do-gooders of returning our surroundings to “how they used to be”, and not without some sound reason. In fact, man has been altering his landscape for more than 3000 years in these parts so it is appropriate to ask which bit we should go back to. However, nearly all you see today is man made over the last 150 years, and by no means is to be condemned on that score.
Large parts of the Suffolk Sandlings were cropped 300 years ago for oak, strictly controlled by the Admiralty, for ensuring the supplies for building the “Hearts of Oak” that repelled both French and Spanish invasions. Prior to that the land was farmed for wool, and the sheep made many merchants very rich indeed, but also produced for Suffolk some of the finest and largest mediaeval churches in the country.
Later new techniques pioneered and developed by a Norfolk Aristocrat, “Turnip” Townshend, transformed farming patterns by crop rotation, making mixed farming more sustainable on light lands. This brought many new jobs and new prosperity to village communities that expanded accordingly in the 19th Century. From this also came in the 1920’s, the sugar beet industry; to become a major East Anglian employer.
Between the 1860’s and 1910, the immediate Estate was transformed, in many ways by Margaret Ogilvie wife of Alexander, who grew from a young quaker girl in Ipswich to a nationally known farmer of Shorthorn Cattle in Sizewell and Minsmere. She created a new enterprise, converting barren sheepwalks into cattle ranching on a fairly large scale. Young stock bred in the Barcaldine Estate in Argyll were railed down to the privately build siding at the Crown Crossing on the railway at Leiston, now a nuclear fuel handling complex. The cattle summered on well managed water meadows, the Sizewell Belts, behind the Power Station, and now a highly conserved area. They were then droved to Norwich for the Michaelmas Fair.
To support this, cattle steadings, Scottish style, were built from Thorpeness up to Scotts Hall, Westleton, warmly sited in sandpits or depressions in the ground protecting the stock from the icy blasts of winter. A Model Dairy was drawn round her farms and cottages in a wheel chair cart drawn by the “backhouse boy” at the Hall.
Pits, now slowly infilling, can be seen at regular intervals from Thorpeness to the Sizewell Belts, known as Marl Pits. Tenants were required, every seven years, to dig down to the layer of London clay, some 8-12 feet down, to be spread on the surrounding field. In the days of horse and cart this was obviously easiest done from the centre outwards, and so they appear some 500 yards apart, still visible. This pattern is definitely not, as a new local myth asserts, a string of bomb craters from WWII! One myth includes the names of eye witnesses who saw them fall; the bomber having been driven off from Leiston Works by our gallant anti-aircraft gunners!
From the mid 19th Century the woodlands were sited, planned and managed as windbreaks on the light soil; the timber, from mixed woods, for many purposes; and for games shooting. This can be seen from both road and rail from London to Lowestoft where the woodlands on the big estates shows this careful layout, which provided a great diversification of hobs and of habitat for animals and birds. Traditional coppicing plantations are visible locally in Thorpe and Sizewell Wents (the latter a long establish Saxon word). The timber demands from WWI were partly solved by the Forestry Commission, compulsorily imposed, practice of conifer planting for pit propos and pulp, becoming the first, and still the worst, examples of mindless monoculture. This was only slightly modified by the 1987 gales, which caused some much overdue tree felling, and some much needed new planting, occasionally using broad leaved, native trees.
The naming of the woods on the maps is in itself a chronology of events. Locally the Alexander and Margaret woods are named from the Estate founders in their day; and the Corporal’s belt, was planted in 1915, when their grandson, who rose from Private to Battalion Commander in the Wilts. Regt., with 3 DSO’s, was awarded his Corporal’s belt. For many years the wood at the end of the writer’s grandfather’s drive at the Stone House, Aldringham was talked of as “Little Booty’s” supposedly after the fishing family from Sizewell.
Reference to the early Ordnance Survey maps spells this as “Little Beauties”; which tells you a bit about the local dialect. Off the same map Shepherd’s walk and His Lordship’s are clearly descriptive, but Pot Briggs and St. James’s more obscure.
In such a low rainfall, low lying, coastal strip it is impossible not to take account of the impact of sea, marsh and river. To the South of Thorpeness, the marshes were the Haven and port of Aldeburgh until silting up and larger ships made the transfer to Slaughden essential. It remained a Haven and a very prolific eel hunting area, the latter attracting boats over from Holland. Barges of coal and brick were floated up to the Parrot & Punchbowl at Aldringham on high spring tides for leisurely unloading until the next moon, departing back to sea sometimes with grain and ale casks. Partial draining took place when the railway construction to Aldeburgh needed gravel in 1856, and finally in 1913 the Thorpeness, Peter Pain themed, Boating Lake was opened.
The silting up continued, but the river mouth was fordable at low tide until the early 20th Century when a tidal sluice was installed.
The vehicular road connection, Thorpe to Aldeburgh, was not made until the construction of a wooden bridge in 1897, which marked Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee. This was demolished in 1940 to deter the German invaders, but replaced later by a causeway. The draining of the marshes produced some very good water meadows of high dairy quality. More recently they have reverted to a carefully man managed environment for marsh and sea birds, fresh and brackish. Some sort of full circle in under 100 years!
Further to the North the Minsmere River was canalised in the late 18th Century by Dutch engineers, forming the New Cut, from Eastbridge to the sea. This greatly enhanced the grazing, but in cutting through the numerous meandering bends the landowners on opposite banks remained quite independent in the best Suffolk tradition. From the RSPB post war occupation to the North the recolonising reed beds still had strange small arable incursions farmed from the South.
Four inhabited cottages at the seaward outfall built by the Dutch were inhabited up until WWII. The occupants drank from the dyke, achieving commendable, surprising longevity. Several of the wives and daughters had domestic jobs in Thorpeness during the season walking the six miles to and fro, as indeed the children walked to school in Eastbridge four miles daily too. The cottages, derelict from many years, were ultimately demolished for the bird reserve, but until very recently the site of one of the privies was easily identified by some glorious rambling roses.
These were planted in Edwardian times when, as a holiday cottage , one of them was let to Lady Roase, who required her Privy to appear more refined than her neighbours.
Two unusual man-made embellishments to the landscape were made at the turn of the last century. Across the Sizewell Belts to the north of the present Power Station, a full scale 1000 yard, 8 target Rifle Range pointing out to sea was in regular use, involving the closing of the beach and foreshore from 500yds. A similar 600 yard Range was sited across Aldringham Walks from the Railway Halt pointing, urprisingly, towards Sizewell Hall. Both were in frequent use up to and after the end of WWII.
And finally, on Aldringham Walks the Shell Pits Cottages, had been built in the 1870’s by Margaret Ogilvie, amongst her myriad good works, as a hostel for families displaced from Ipswich by cholera, typhoid & slums to live in the healthy and bracing countryside. It failed to win approval of the inmates who decamped in a few weeks back to town finding the remoteness spooky, the walk to the pub too long, and no doubt on many occasions the return trip somewhat more hazardous. Contrary to another recent myth the name does not stem from the storage of artillery shells in the adjacent pits in WWII, but from the more mundane digging of sea shells, in great abundance, for their use in the liming of arable fields, begun at least in the early 18th Century.

Ness House and Warden’s

admin — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 17:02:32 +0000

Ness house was, for reasons not yet satisfactorily explained, called “The Tea House” from before 1868 through to 1945. The present building incorporates a farm house, which was recorded on the Tithe Maps of 1831 as including barns with 125 acres of land down to the foreshore. The house is constructed of brick with shingle facing, distinct from the flints used elsewhere in East Anglia. The building material was traditionally collected from the more easily accessible beaches at Sizewell and Thorpeness, where it was manually sorted into piles of different grades, often by those in the community who would today be classified as having learning difficulties and considered not worth sending to school. This practice continued into the 1920’s.

In the early years of the 19th Century this was the only house between the small hamlet of Thorpe to the South, and Sizewell Gap to the North, then consisting only of the Inn, the Pebble Cottages and Hill Farm, now flattened by the Power Station. The Coastguard Cottages were built after the Napoleonic Wars, and the three residences, Cliff House, Sizewell Hall and Dower House were all evolved from seaside summer houses of the local gentry, after the Estate was consolidated by Alexander Ogilvie, the Railway developer, around 1884, who lived in the Hall.

Soon after the House was altered extensively and became the residence of Dr. Menteith Ogilvie, one of his 5 sons, an ophthalmic Surgeon practising in London and Oxford. He was also a renowned orchid grower, RHS Gold Medalist and ornithologist and progressively assembled a very large collection of birds of the British Isles, mainly from East Anglia. In 1902 he built a personal, private Museum to house them, incorporating underfloor heating, remote controlled roof ventilating louvres and overhead glazed lights with individual roller blinds to control emission of ultra violet rays. The collection was stuffed and presented by T.E Gunn of Norwich and was looked after by a warden living in the cottage accommodation built on to the Western end. This was almost certainly the best private collection in the country. Dr Ogilvie died in 1918, and bequeathed the collection mainly to Ipswich Borough Museum where it is excellently displayed and regularly visited by those interested in such fine examples of the taxidermist’s art.
From then the building was used for grain storage, farm machinery, boat building and the storage of other people’s chattels. In World War 2, during army use, some damage occurred to lights, roof, ceiling panels & floor and we are still struggling with temporary repairs originally intended just to make it weatherproof for grain storage purposes. From all this we chose the Centre’s name, so much preferable to “The old Museum”!

Warden’s
Fifteen years ago Mr & Mrs Richard Grimson gifted the old Museum to Warden’s Charitable Trust for use as an Outings Centre for physically and mentally handicapped people of all ages. With 4 acres of recreational grounds and many amenities for the m within the main Hall, it has become much used by many East Anglian organisations, helping disabled people to enjoy seaside visits in a beautiful and unique setting.
Around The House
Since WWII , there has been considerable erosion of the foreshore, although this has recently stabilised in the immediate vicinity. Elsewhere on the East Anglian coast there are major problems aggravated by global warming, rising sea levels and the impossible costs of major defence works.
On the foreshore to the North, opposite the Hall in the late 19th Century, there was a “Wreck House” maintained personally by the Ogilvies, to give succour, including the last rites to shipwrecked sailors. Manned during bad weather, it contained food, blankets & first aid equipment, including no doubt rum.
Nearer the Ness, from 1853 – 1900, and oared lifeboat was stationed, with a crew of up to 16, working in conjunction with Sizewell rocket and line apparatus, manned by local coastguards; separate from the Excise men , who were responsible for anti-smuggling operations, and so sadly missed today. Both buildings, or their remains were obliterated in 1940 to clear fields of fire for the invasion defences, which were very extensive up to and including Southwold to the North, the limit of the projected invasion capability for German Air Cover.
The house and grounds are something of a landfall for migrating birds, and are situated between the Church Farm/North Warren RSPB reserve to the South & Minsmere, their flagship property to the North. In addition the heaths and woodlands to the West are now managed for habitat by RSPB, whilst the Sizewell Belts and lands to the North of the Sizewell Road are in the hands of the Suffolk Wildlife Trust.
With plenty of foot and bridle paths networking the adjacent areas, walking is a real pleasure, and we ask you to observe the Country Code and respect the access shown on the Maps.

Smugglers on the Suffolk shores

admin — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 16:27:42 +0000

Across the beaches of this part of Suffolk for hundreds of years now men, and some women, have splashed back and forth through the waves, sometimes by day, generally by night, on illicit and nefarious passage. Single spies are easy to hid, difficult to find except when crossing a shoreline, but some of the shipments of smuggled goods must have been large and blatant, requiring the active, or passive support of almost the whole community.

Co-operation with the local populace was achieved in many ways, as Kipling said of the flourishing years of smuggling as a lucrative trade.

The Smugglers’ Song

If you wake at midnight and hear a horse’s feet,
Don’t go drawing back the blind, or looking in the street;
Them that asks no questions, isn’t told no lie,
Watch the wall, my darling, while the gentlemen go by.

Five and twenty ponies
Trotting through the dark -
Brandy for the parson
‘Baccy for the clerk;
Laces for a Lady; Letters for a spy;
And watch the wall, my darling,
While the gentlemen go by.

RUDYARD KIPLING

Smuggling contraband developed not at first as a way round taxation, but to circumvent some of the Middle Ages Charters and Monopolies. Customs were introduced around 1198, and the restricting of the wool export trade to Staple towns and ports was resented by many merchants, and the demand for English wool from the Flemish weavers encouraged shipments off the beach.

One of our many commercial practices borrowed from the Dutch in 1643 was Excise; an unpopular imposition, described by Dr. Johnson in his Dictionary, as “a hateful tax, adjudged by hired wretches”; so our views on tax gatherers have not changed much.

Already though Suffolk lore and legend brought over with the Vikings was used perhaps to keep people at home after dark whilst others went about their unlawful ways. A widespread legend involves a flying black dog spreading fear and fright throughout the countryside. It is written that in 1577 in Blythburgh, some 5 miles away, during Sunday service, the dog Black Shuck swept down from the tower through the frightened congregation, killing two, and disappearing out of the vestry door. Westleton walks, four miles from here, on a regular smugglers route is haunted by Black Toby, the ghost of a Negro drummer boy of Dragoons, hanged there in chains for rape and murder. The route passes Scots Hall where there are extensive vaults used to hold goods landed a mile away and awaiting dispersal inland.

Troops were imported to help the law officers and magistrates, often stationed in hostelries in most parishes near the coast. They were German style Dragoon regiments that did not endear themselves to the Suffolk natives. Gangs of forty men or more, with dozens of carts, were common; giving some idea both of the size of the shipments and the degree of local support. But, in 1747 a pitched battle took place with the Dragoons, later to become The Queen’s Own, Winston Churchill’s regiment, in the yard of the Eel’s Foot Inn at east bridge, under three miles away.

Sizewell Beach, just to the North was often used; Hill House had a concealed window that could show a light to sea, not to be seen from along the beach by the Coastguards or Excise men. Nearby in Leiston, the redoubtable Mrs. Gildersleeves ran the White Horse Inn; an intelligence centre for the gangs, perhaps helped by having Dragoons and their horses billeted there. Occasionally their answer to an urgent summons was slowed down by the offer of “one for the road”. It is also believed that brandy storage was arranged across the road in The Friends Meeting House in pressing moments, without hopefully the connivance of the Quakers. Smuggling planning was easily disguised under the normal traffic through the local inns, and the Parrot and Punchbowl in Aldringham and the Three Mariners at Slaughden long held such a reputation.

East Indiamen standing off London River waiting for wind or tide, in mist or fog, or at night, would tranship chests of tea to small craft, for later landing up the coast in Essex and Suffolk.

The impressing of men and ships for the fighting against the French, as well as the piratical Dunkirkers, reduced the strength available to search for contraband, but by 1817 reinforcements were released from the navy and the trade became more difficult. Thereafter tax burdens lightened or were replaced by new ones and smuggling became less profitable.

Coastal surveillance was again stepped up in 1914, and Ness House and other houses along this coast were used by the soldiers. A Coastguard service, as well as more numerous lifeboats, made the beaches a less private place. Increases in revenue duties were introduced in the’20’s and ‘30’s, but at least one local pub served surprisingly cheap Dutch gin. In World War II the beach here became impassable to all but the military, and later a few chosen fishermen. Cigarettes became the most common of contraband, and the vast increase in the number of private yachts has made harbour inspections a very regular feature of coastal passage, but the beach at times is still a very secret place for those who want it so.

The enormous ferry terminals at Felixstowe and Harwich are a focus for the professional experts, on both sides, with sophisticated apparatus and dogs, searching for narcotics. Illegal immigrants, more recently, are reported to be a much more lucrative trade, but are involved in frightening exploitation in their lands of origin.

The beach, and the quiet land behind, still have many attractions for the modern smuggler with his gruesome drugs and sad human cargoes.

Wars on the Suffolk shores

admin — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 16:26:37 +0000

Over 1600 years ago there appeared off these beaches invading ships from the Lowlands and Denmark. Locally, the declining influence of Rome was defended by the Count of the Saxon shore, with castles at Walton on the Naze and Burgh Castle near Yarmouth. The warriors who came to seek new lands were also men of culture, with artefacts and jewellery of fine design and craftsmanship as the remains from the burial ship at Sutton Hoo near Woodbridge have shown.

Later the ships of the Vikings probed the rivers of this coast to find loot and food among the lush villages on good agricultural land from the ecclesiastical establishments of Seelig (holy, but later to become “silly”) Suffolk.

In Elizabethan times the trading ports of Aldeburgh and Dunwich, and even Sizewell, provided ships at the Royal command to help repel the invasion of the Spanish Armada off the southern coasts. In 1672, the Battle of Sole Bay was fought off Southwold, within sight of us here; the last time a Royal admiral, the Duke of York, later to be James II, commanded a British fleet on the high seas.

The Earl of Sandwich, investor of “fast” food to be eaten at the gambling tables, was killed in action. The battle was bloody but inconclusive, with many dead washed ashore to be picked over by the longshore folk. In 1745, the fleet supporting “Butcher” Cumberland en route to quell Bonny Prince Charlie’s uprising in Scotland victualled and loaded artillery at Southwold.

Later in the Napoleonic Wars the likelihood of invasion was very real, and many a child was frightened into silence, if not to sleep, by mother’s threat that “Boney” would come if they did not behave. The chain of forts, like that of Mortella in Corsica, show to this day how seriously the threat of invasion was taken by William Pitt and his cabinet, the northernmost is still in good condition just south of Aldeburgh, although finished long after the end of the War in 1815.

With the beginning of the Twentieth Century there was already an uneasy peace on both sides of the German Ocean, as it was then called on English maps. By 1916 Lowestoft was shelled by German battle cruisers, and there are people alive today who recall hearing on still summer nights, the rumble of guns from the Flanders front some 100 miles away. Overhead the drone of Zeppelins was often heard as they sneaked round the guns of the Harwich estuary on their way to London. In 1917, early one summer morning a fighter pilot, billeted a mile from here in the garden room of the Stone House, Aldringham, took off from a grass aerodrome near Aldeburgh and show down Zeppelin L.48 into a field near Theberton church.

One interesting aspect of the native Suffolk observance and reasoning was shown early in W.W.1. A longshore Thorpe fishing boat, manned by a Harling and a Westrup, was trawling an hour before dawn when they were approached by a Submarine fixing them in its searchlight and asking, in good English, the name of the town with the lights on (Aldeburgh), which they said, and were thanked. They were surprised as both Southwold and Orfordness Lighthouses were flashing clearly in good visibility. Westrup also noted that the conning tower lettering ‘E2’ was smaller and in a different place to that on British subs.

Later, on landing, they reported the event to Thorpeness Coastguard. The following day the Chief Officer from Aldeburgh came over and thanked them; The German U-boat ‘E2’ had been captured 20 miles South of Felixstowe! Later still, the Thorpe coastguard got the MBE, and the fishermen a Letter of Thanks. Nothing much changes!

World War II came swiftly and dramatically to this part of the coast. On the second Sunday, September 10th 1939, the S.S. “Magdapur” was sunk in daylight two miles off to the South-East, and the landing of many injured by the lifeboat from Aldeburgh tested the new emergency services to the limit.

Eight months later invasion was again a desperate probability. Progressively, rows of anti-tank mines were laid along the foreshore. Sharpened iron girders in concrete blocks pointed seaward below high tide mark to hole approaching craft, and 10’ high tubular scaffolding, braced back, formed a wall of steel. Later pipelines laid off from the shore were used to pump fuel oil beyond the breakers, to be set alight to burn the landing boats.

On land concrete blocks formed more vehicle obstacles along and up the beach. Along the cliff path the rifle slits in the Dower House wall were cut to give infantry coverage to the 4” guns trained along the coast in enfilade support of those at Dunwich, 4 miles away.

On the heathland inland ditches still criss-cross the landscape, and the supporting pill boxes are to be seen among the bracken and brambles in many places. The army checked night and day almost throughout the war for aerial spraying of mustard gas during periods of onshore winds each time enemy aircraft were heard out to sea. Up to 15 miles inland the locals were restricted in travel, and every large field had obstructions erected, old cars and farm implements, to deter landing gliders and long stretches of road had high wires stretched across to trap them on landing. The hastily formed Local Defence Volunteers, later “Dad’s Army”, the Home Guard, initially included the local vicar, but the wealth of experience and talent from World War I would have given a good account if the Germans had crossed the beaches.

The aerial activity in East Anglia was always heavy and the innate suspicion of the Suffolk native towards strangers was actively used in looking for paratroops. In September 1940, a German Dornier was shot down into the sea off Ness House after bombing Leiston works in daylight. Fortunately the bombs were not fully fused.

For all those years the Army stood to on this cliff and the defences were maintained, and now after fifty years of peace, longer than in many centuries past, we are grateful that the troubled times these shores have seen are passing into memory.

Warden’s and Our Environment

admin — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 15:23:58 +0000

We live here on the Eastern edge of an offshore West European island in the temperate Zone off the Northern Hemisphere. Ten thousand years ago we were on the fringe of a great Delta which emptied the major rivers Trent, Ouse, Thames, Elbe and Rhine northwards into the Norwegian sea, before the sea broke through the present Straits of Dover. All these Lowlands were nowhere much above 400 feet above sea level and the channels were shallow.

Today we stand 32 feet above the present sea level, and the deepest spot between here and Holland is barely 110 feet; Nelson’s Column would stand well anywhere without wetting his feet! So there is a very fine margin between safety and flood disasters as witnessed several times a Century since records started.

Over seven hundred years ago, in 1285, one storm and one high tide nearly obliterated the town of Dunwich, 3 miles up the coast within sight of us here. The present coastline there is over 500 yards west of the line in those days. A town of nearly 3000 souls was wiped off the map; at least 4 churches disappeared. Some locals say you can still hear their bells tolling in bad weather!

Around 400 years ago the Elizabethan poet John Donne wrote:-

No man is an island,
Entire of itself;
Every man is a piece of the continent’
A part of the main;
If a clod by washed away by the sea;
Europe is the less …………………;

Any man’s death diminishes me;
Because I am involved in Mankind;
And therefore never send to know
For whom the bell tolls;
It tolls for thee.

And so we stand here, betwixt land and sea, with, globally, many people tolling alarm bells on rising sea levels; hotter, drier summers; stormier, windier winters; with vegetation dwindling and animal species becoming extinct. Much of which we can already observe here at Warden’s.

Evidence of the effects of Climate Change are already around us. Most noticeably the loss of foreshore over the last 50 years amounts to over 70 yards. Beyond the bottom of the “Cliff” there used to be, from Sizewell Gap to the Ness a long expanse of links type grass before the Benthills, beyond which was the high tide mark of a sandy beach, as can still be seen north of the Gap.

More importantly the Ness itself has diminished; offshore sandbanks regularly uncovered at Low Springs have gone. Their roller resistance is severely reduced, and as a result beach scour of 6 feet in NE and SE gales has become apparent. This beach scour actually caused a slippage of the “Cliff” slope over 2 stretches of 100 yards each, only 300 yards north of us here in 2001, and again in 2006.

The higher offshore winds, becoming more frequent, have a serious detrimental effect on vegetation struggling to colonise the shingle. This cannot tolerate prolonged exposure to the salt laden winds. This latter effect can also be seen more often affecting fairly well established deciduous trees and shrubs as far as 1000 yards inland. Salt burn on the eastern side of conifers can now be seen every year.

The stunting effect of wind can also be seen on the adjacent paddocks to the S.W. of Warden’s. These contain plantations of 6 different species of hardwoods, mostly English natives, with about 650 survivors of planting over the last 15 years. One can see thriving trees over 12 feet high not far from some live specimens showing minimal growth in the same period. The difference is not rabbits or deer, but shelter, mainly from wind but also from salt; a real example of micro climate effecting the natural appearance of our landscape. By studying all this we hope to achieve a beneficial impact on our environment.

Raising the awareness of the problems is perhaps the least we can do; practical ways of slowing or reversing the trends are more difficult, and probably painful.

However, here, we have reactivated on site a real and unique asset built into this wonderful building over a hundred years ago by its builder, Menteith Ogilvie; namely rainwater harvesting. A Victorian idea, now revived by DEFRA as a better alternative for farmers to harvesting food.

All the rain falling on our six thousand square feet of roof is ducted underground into a cistern holding around 2,250 gallons. Originally pumped by hand to water the garden we are by-passing some into barrels, from which it will be released to plant roots through seepage hoses. We are putting in a wind generator and solar panels to make the entire system carbon emission free.

With average rainfall around 20 inches per annum, we will harvest around 62,000 gallons of good water, unadulterated by human hand.

In addition to our earlier planting of shelter belt trees, now providing windcover and visual amenities, we have always adopted a non-pesticide, non-inorganic management of the grassland giving a significant increase in Biodiversity to our bit of the Suffolk Heritage Coast. We have now added a major feature in the Dipping Pond, which in its first few weeks attracted a lot of new flora and fauna that could not otherwise survive in our own microclimate, which is declining into the Sub-Saharan bracket. But still only 2% of the rain falling on the UK is collected and distributed by the Water Companies through their pipes. Over 150 years ago the Victorian engineers piped water from the Lake District and Wales allowing enormous populated and industrial growth in the midlands. The rainfall pattern has not changed, only our attitudes to husbanding natural resources. In 2007 we have no plans to build a National Water Grid for the U.K.

Not to us: ours comes from our own well, regularly inspected by the Health Authorities, only 35 feet below the surface.

We have a lot to learn and re-learn in solving our own man made problems, and we hope to make Warden’s a Centre to promote this within the context of the effect of individuals on our Environment and to propagate the means by which we can achieve a healthier balance between us and our surroundings!