This is Chopwell Wood

(Check back often as we will be updating regularly with images, texts, and archival materials)

VIEW OF CHOPWELL WOOD

I can see Chopwell Woods from my house in Burnopfield and maybe there would be an interesting vista photograph seeing them within a landscape setting. Cheviot and Rothbury Craggs form part of this view. So one can see millions — VIEW OF CHOPWELL WOOD I can see Chopwell Woods from my house in Burnopfield and maybe there would be an interesting vista photograph seeing them within a landscape setting. Cheviot and Rothbury Craggs form part of this view. So one can see millions of years of history from Volcano (Cheviot is a dead one) through geographical changes of the land being covered in forest to settlements of clearings making farms, villages, towns and eventually cities. Even Turner painted the view (he did several of the Gibside area of the Derwent Valley.) Please find attached a photo of a postcard of J.M.W.Turner's painting " Gibside from the South 1817-19 ". Sorry it's a bit faded -- I keep it on the window sill of my loft bedroom as this is the view from there. Chopwell Woods would be somewhere on the left edge I think. I often try to guess where he must have been standing when he prepared this painting -- maybe it started with sketches ?? Scottish border somewhere in the background. Submitted by Adele

PINE CONE.

I was out with my kids on Friday in Chopwell Woods. Strangely quiet wildlife for some reason. Loudest noises were the buzzing of electricity cables overhead. Submitted by John — PINE CONE. I was out with my kids on Friday in Chopwell Woods. Strangely quiet wildlife for some reason. Loudest noises were the buzzing of electricity cables overhead. Submitted by John

CREAKING TREES. Chopwell Wood. Sunday 9th August 2020. Creaking trees, crazy cyclists, giant ants. Submitted by Kate

ROOTS. Chopwell Wood. Sunday 9th August 2020. Creaking trees, crazy cyclists, giant ants. Submitted by Kate.

SEED PODS. Chopwell Wood. Sunday 9th August 2020. Creaking trees, crazy cyclists, giant ants. Submitted by Kate

GIANT ANTS. Chopwell Wood. Sunday 9th August 2020. Creaking trees, crazy cyclists, giant ants. Submitted by Kate

VIEW OF CHOPWELL WOOD. Submitted by Adele

VILLAGE ON THE EDGE OF THE WOOD. A drawing of Victoria Garesfield as it was. It was done by someone called Will Gardner. Our house is the white one with a green door at the front of the picture. Submitted by Graeme.

Dear Eric and Mia,

Here’s the poem, a prose poem called Speculation Drift, which was one of the drift mines operated by Victoria Garesfield Colliery in Chopwell Woods. The name’s a bit of a gift, I suppose. Anyway, I’ve attached a set of photographs — Dear Eric and Mia, Here’s the poem, a prose poem called Speculation Drift, which was one of the drift mines operated by Victoria Garesfield Colliery in Chopwell Woods. The name’s a bit of a gift, I suppose. Anyway, I’ve attached a set of photographs so you can see it. Submitted by Graeme.

Hart’s-tongue fern. Submitted by Graeme.

Old workings, Pallis Burn, Chopwell Woods. Submitted by Graeme.

The tunnel entrance and the cutting. Submitted by Graeme.

The cutting opening out to the old sidings. Submitted by Graeme.

Here’s the infamous banner and socially distanced march in July of this year. The edge of Chopwell Woods is in the background. Submitted by John.

Here’s the infamous banner. Submitted by John.

I go to Chopwell woods nearly every day. It’s five minutes from my house. I started going there to walk my dog. Now I walk there for me and my dog comes along. It purifies me. My thoughts, my breathing, my sense of smell and taste are all heightened by each visit. I find different paths and come face to face with deer. Sometimes we just stop and stare at each other. It is respectful. Submitted by Hayley

FALL COLOURS IN CHOPWELL. Some of the beautiful colours I seen on my solo walk. Submitted by Charlotte.

RUBY MATCHES THE LEAVES - Ruby, she’s a Rhodesian Ridgeback and her colouring looks great at this time of the year, matches the leaves!! Submitted by Caroline.

RHODODENDRON BUSHES - The leaves are from the rhododendron bushes which are all over the woods - seem to be coming into bud early this year. Submitted by Caroline.

SNOW ON BRANCHES. Submitted by Caroline.

SNOW ON TREE TRUNK. Submitted by Caroline.

RUBY IN THE SNOW. Submitted by Caroline.

FOGGY DAY IN CHOPWELL. Submitted by Annie.

GLACIAL MORAINES IN THE SNOW. Submitted by Graeme.

SNOW COVERED WALKING TRIALS. Submitted by Graeme.

EARLY AFTERNOON IN CHOPWELL WOOD. Submitted by Ros.

HAZEL, TREE OF KNOWLEDGE. Submitted by Liz.

BEAUTIFUL CHOPWELL IN WINTER. Submitted by Kylie.

SPRING: NEW GROWTH IN THE GARLIC DIP. Submitted by Graeme.

FROM DAILY COVID PERMITTED WALKS IN CHOPWELL WOODS. Submitted by Susan.

LOVE WITH MOSSY BRANCHES - Submitted by Susan

WINTER IN THE WOOD: Taken 9 February 2021. Submitted by Reg

A DAMP DAY IN THE WOOD. Submitted by Reg

PATHWAYS, AVENUES, AND VISTAS. Submitted by Jane

VICTORIA GARESFIELD BANNER. I mentioned the very proud history of the people who lived in the surrounding conurbations like Chopwell and I mentioned the trade union banners that represented the trade union and many of the local coalfields had their own. The slogans on them are brilliant and forward thinking. Here is a photograph of the Victoria Garesfield banner which does not exist anymore – or its in someone’s loft! Many of these banners are paraded along with the miners gala I mentioned and is one of the biggest organised and regular working class cultural and political events in Europe and possibly the world I would say (200,000 attended the last one in July 2019). Which is even more incredible given most of the pits have closed. Submitted by Clive.

SPRING GREENS IN CHOPWELL WOOD. Submitted by Reg.

SPRING WOODS. The woods are so beautiful at this time of year (and any other time really). Submitted by Elaine.

SILVER BIRCH. I love the silver birches in this boggy bit of the woods. Seen from the other side, I imagine C19th Russian prisoners passing them on the route march to Siberia. Interesting to hear birch described as a weed in the 1951 History of Chopwell Woods called 'The Felled Areas Have Been Replanted: A History of Chopwell Wood' created by Eric and Mia.

BEECH TREES AT HOOKERGATE. Submitted by Reg.

HEART ROT. Less than a fortnight ago, on a GIFT 3 WOODS walk, Oisin talked of how one of these beeches had heart rot; how they’d had to take out the bench because of the danger of heart-rotten branches falling on the people who sat below; how the branches were going to have to come down. And they have. And the bench is back. Submitted by Greame.

CHOPWELL FROM A DISTANCE. Across the valley from Burnopfield to Chopwell Woods April 17.

FROSTY MORNING IN CHOPWELL. Submitted by Reg.

TRACKS. Deep in the forest, something stirred ... Submitted by Reg.

SUNLIGHT THROUGH THE TREES. One photo from a truly magical day. We saw a deer two seconds after this. Submitted by Rachel.

VIOLETS ON A SUNNY BANK. Submitted by Susan.

VIEW OF CHOPWELL. View from the fields of Burnopfield. Beautiful blue sky and sunshine--10 minutes later snow! Submitted by Adele.

AVENUES. There are several avenues of Beech trees in the woods-does anyone know why they were planted in this way? Submitted by Jane.

LIGHT IN THE WOODS. I love the light at this time of year! Submitted by Alyson.

PUBLIC ART IN THE WOODS. Looking forward to more art in the woods!! Submitted by Rachel.

MINW WORKING IN CHOPWELL WOOD. These are rough steps from one drift mine entrance to another - from about 1895 Submitted by Clive.

DARK TRUNKS AGAINST COLOURFUL BACKGROUND. Submitted by Clive.

BEAUTIFUL FALL FOLIAGE. Submitted by Clive.

SUNLIGHT BREAKING THROUGH THE CANOPY. Submitted by Clive.

CUT BARK.  Submitted by Clive. — CUT BARK. Submitted by Clive.

FERNS ON DECAYING LEAVES.  Submitted by Clive. — FERNS ON DECAYING LEAVES. Submitted by Clive.

TRANSITIONING.  Submitted by Clive. — TRANSITIONING. Submitted by Clive.

FERNS IN TWO DIFFERENT LIGHTS. Submitted by Clive.

WOODLAND INTERVENTIONS. Submitted by Jane.

CREAKING TREES. Chopwell Wood. Sunday 9th August 2020. Creaking trees, crazy cyclists, giant ants. Submitted by Kate

Ok I'm sitting here in a place in the woods and thinking I'm supposed to be very aware and contemplative and thoughtful of the things around me. I am but other thoughts keep coming into my head, sometimes related to here, sometimes not.

It's all so random.

I think how small I am, one organism amongst many.

I think about an activity I’m doing at the moment which is scanning my pre digital photograph prints and that of my family. A start and an end. Very arbitrary. I say I’m doing it for the kids and the pleasure it gives people.

It’s completely random that I'm here living in these woods, and knowing someone who told me about the art project.

Why am I interested anyway?

Why did I want to do art all those years ago?

What is this? Wind. Moving things about.

What is this? Air moving into me and out

My carbon dioxide keeping the trees alive. Or is it the other way round?

The sun is everything. Without it our world would not exist

A noise.

Work.

Submitted by Clive

The Scent of Soil

The 21st March 2020 was the equinox and meant to be such a positive day as the official first day of Spring. However, it ended up being one of my darkest days, as I heard in the morning that the best man at my wedding (and vice versa) had died at home after a long illness and I went down with my first symptoms of Covid 19 later that evening.

Roll on seven weeks and I was slowly recovering from the virus and trying to restore my strength and fitness. After a whole month indoors, I was starting to go for short, slow walks and enjoying brief exposure to the local woods. On one warm and quite humid afternoon in early May, I was strolling through the oak woodland and stopped for a while to enjoy a very familiar smell.

The rich, organic and earthy smell had been triggered by some spots of rain that day. I already knew that it was caused by a special type of filamentous bacteria (actinobacteria) in the soil, in much the same way as the smell of sea that we all love is also caused by a mixture of chemicals from the activities of bacteria, algae and other organisms on the sea shore.

When I checked the internet to learn more about this smell, I was delighted to find that it has its own word – ‘petrichor’. This etymological journey of discovery was an adventure in itself. The word was created by two Australian scientists in the 1960s, who named the smell from two Greek words – petra (stone) and ichor (the fluid that flows through the veins of Greek gods). The main chemical is geosmin, which is released from the soil in small aerosol droplets with the onset of rain under certain conditions and can be detected by the human nose in concentrations as low as 5 parts per trillion! This is possibly due to the evolutionary importance to our ancestors in needing rainy weather for survival.

The whole experience of smelling the petrichor and discovering more about it, was a most welcome escape from the bleakness of the previous weeks and one that I will remember for a long time.

Only yesterday, I heard the soundtrack of the award-winning film Nomadland, which had a track called ‘Petrichor’, so this word will probably become well known to many of us quite soon and will be a welcome reminder of the beauty of hidden nature around us.

Submitted by Oisin

Chopwell Wood and surroundings from Burnopfield on a misty quiet Sunday. Submitted by Adele

Has anyone told you about the history of the coal mines and the strong trade unions in the area? E.g. that Chopwell was I think one of the last areas to go back to work in the general strike and the legacy which continues to today. There’s more but this is very brief http://www.chopwell.org/history/. There were hundreds of mines in the area and the local people, the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) together with the Labour Party formed a strong community in the areas. Each year there was a Miner’s Gala at Durham, and each colliery, marched behind their pit colliery NUM banner in Durham to hear speakers. Many local areas had their own banner and band and they marched behind them through their own area before setting off for ‘The Big Meeting’ in Durham. Even though the mines have been closed, the Gala still continues and is organised by the Durham Miners Association. It is an incredible and moving event with historical banners, brass bands, and is probably one of the biggest working class events in the world I’d say (I could be wrong). And Chopwell and other areas still have their march in their own area in the morning before going onto the big meeting in Durham. I could go on and I am no expert but there’s loads of info e.g. https://www.durhamminers.org/gala

As an ardent field recordist I'm always looking for interesting sonic artefacts in our surroundings. I have a recording from Chopwell Woods made in April 2019, of a strange buzzing from overhead pylons. They were a lot louder than i've experienced b… — As an ardent field recordist I'm always looking for interesting sonic artefacts in our surroundings. I have a recording from Chopwell Woods made in April 2019, of a strange buzzing from overhead pylons. They were a lot louder than i've experienced before and the electrical hum was quite at odds with the buzz of other activity.
Submitted by Dave

This weekend Gateshead International Festival of Theatre holds a series of 3 Woods: Chopwell online events. Some of us went on an excellent walk the other day with Canadian artists Mia & Eric joining us on Facetime. I hadn't known Charles I's flagship Sovereign of the Seas was built with Chopwell oaks. It made me very happy. If I'd started on the significance, it would, however, have drained everybody's battery life and there were still 3 hours of walk to go... Check out the GIFT events www.giftfestival.co.uk. Some of what I might have said is here:

SOVEREIGN OF THE SEAS

O, the lost oaks of Chopwell Woods!

O, the lost head of Charles I!

O, the lost herrings of the seas!

And we listened beneath this oak above the river, the name of which means valley thick with oaks even though the woods are now a patchwork of plantations, to a story of Charles I and the cutting down of Chopwell oaks to build a flagship, a Sovereign of the Seas.

And as I listened, I thought of herrings and of Charles I, who also thought about herrings and about the Dutchmen who stole his herrings and claimed their wealth and their navy were built upon his herrings and his father's herrings and his father's mother's herrings and those of her father, James V of Scotland, who fought a failure of a nine year war against the Dutch to stop them stealing his herrings.

And Sovereign of the Seas would have more gilding and more guns than any Dutchman and put paid to further talk of any Mare Liberum and the rights of nations ending at their own shorelines, because clearly the rights of the nations, which God himself had given Charles the right to rule, stretched to the horizon or as far out to sea as a king with good eyesight might see from his own shore on a clear day or, for the purposes of dispute, fourteen miles.

And history does not tell which oaks had built the fleet with which the good Earl of Northumberland set sail to intercept Die Groote Visserye with one hundred herring fishing licences each personally signed by Good King Charles, or, for that matter, which oaks had built the much larger fleet the Dutch Republic sent out the following season, suggesting discretion might yet be the better part of his valour.

And poor old Charles, with all the gilding in the world he'd never be the brightest button in the box, never quite get the resentment some felt, paying for the ships that would defend his shoals or the implications it might have for the very concept of Divine Right or even how the fishy smell of Popish fasting had made the common people less than keen on herrings anyway and so it was he'd lost his head two years before Sovereign of the Seas saw action in the Battle of the Kentish Knock and, even though the Dutchmen named it Golden Devil, by that time Cromwell's navy simply called her Sovereign and by the time its days were done the King of England, Scotland, France and Ireland was, himself, a Dutchman.

And it took four Anglo-Dutch Wars to depose the Hollanders as Top Herring Nation (although only three were actually concerned with fish) and another thirty years still before Great Britain itself became Top Herring Nation and by that time conifer plantations had replaced the lost oaks of Chopwell Woods.

And by the time we stood beneath this fragment of almost-ancient wood, listening to a fragment of a tale of Sovereign of the Seas, whatever sovereignty now means or may yet come to mean, it did not at that moment include the 95% of England's herring fishing rights which England's fishing quota owners sold to Cornelis Vrolijk BV of Ijmuiden and the supertrawler they call Cornelis Vrolijk.

COUNTING BATS

[.....]

bat
bat

bat

detected at 45 kHz equals

common pip

common
pipistrelle

ex-latin
vespertilio

bird of the evening

flying mammal of the night

bat
common bat

pipistrellus pipistrellus

bat bat

each
bat
unfolding
that
folded fits
inside a matchbox
flits
from boxed eaves
towards the silhouetting

trees

bat bat

bat
but

same bat

almost

but

pitching 55

1 in 10 of more than 50
equal

pipistrellus pygmaeus
unusually small
bat

no smaller in fact but
higher

soprano pip

though all
more than 50 flit
and pitch

higher than mozart's

queen of the night

forget strauss
and his
fledermaus

bat bat

bat
bat
bat

bat

bat bat bat

then one
more than more than f6 above top c

bat

[.....]

—Submitted by Graeme Rigby

PATHS, CHOPWELL WOODS

I met a man who said he'd made these paths; worked on them in World War II. The two of us contemplated his handiwork curving above the river, rising with the cliff. Just the metalled roadways, you understand.

My great grandfather was a herbalist. I've his three volume Wayside and Woodland Blossoms, a pocket guide for those with three to spare. So many flowers noted last year along these waysides. Maybe it all seemed more important, Stitchwort, Herb Robert, Selfheal, or maybe it was just the app (PictureThis, upgraded to include trees).

III

It was barely visible on the slope cut by the burn, deep into the leavings of a glacier: a path picked out by roe deer. When did the mountain bikes come?

Once upon a time the woods came under Denny's protection, a big man with a little dog, who didn't approve of motorbikes and, if he caught one, would make the lad put it in first and push it home.

So many tracks through this mud: I've seen some aim for where it's deepest, but not many. The rest of us just pick our way around, widening the paths, opening up irresistible detours.

We took this path in 1984 and for that first time saw the river. Now there are three, the left-hand cut in the early 90s, a contractor hauling out trees; the other takes the line of the ridge created by the cut of the original. All of them come out in the same place although the right-hand offers alternatives: steep with roots or, sheer and broad, a wheel-smoothed clay drop.

VII

At the wood's edge, close to the well of a long-gone settlement, two gateposts stand, complete with redundant hinges, the fencing between them saying No.

The paths constantly multiply, but none imagine journeys: each settlement has its entrances, but no paths run between them; even the old railway line is blocked at one end; forget the other basic plots, they all say Return.

A working wood, each path is a line of extraction: timber, coal, well-being, what's the difference? The shape of a scar, maybe.

PIPISTRELLE BATS ON EDGE OF CHOPWELL WOOD. Submitted by Graeme.

THE SOUNDS OF PIPISTRELLE BATS. (volume up!). Submitted by Graeme.

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POI 17 Oct 2020 17:49:00.

Location:
NZ 14192 58271
54o 55' 09" N 46' 49" W
-1.7801, 54.9189
"50 to 140", "why", "stopped down". Take my headphones off.
Yellow leaves
Black lines
Have idea that i could drop a point on a map of chopwell and sit there for 15 minutes. Random.
Men's shouty voices, slightly echoey .
Lone bird singing. Why do they do that? Why do we get pleasure from it? There's nothing in it for them from us.
Dog waiting while i stand here. What is she thinking? Is she thinking what am I thinking? Is she thinking I am thinking?
Rain just dropped into my neck.
Traffic sounds in the distance.
Deleted text
Tinnitus starting. Did it just start or have i just realised it was there?
Rain increasing.
Hitting the leaves not me.
Dog sitting down now. Slowly tentatively. I know she's in pain. She's old. Back legs.
I'm disappointed. Nothing has happened.

Submitted by Clive