Friday 20 May 2022

Breathtaking views! Craig y Cilau Nature Reserve

 Looking across to the Limestone escarpment.  The grassy hillocks you can see are spoil heaps from when it was a quarry.  



Well, clear blue skies yesterday lured me out.  Keith was tired and walking slower again, but still managed another half an hour woodworking, and between us we made the other shelf support.  I am getting better with the Jig-saw now, more accurate. I will be in his workshop today having a much needed sort out.  I have decided that a tidy hand is needed as you can't find anything in there.  He may know where he left something, but when he asks ME to find it, I can't.  I can remember seeing a house on Escape to the Country where the Man Cave was the most tidy and organized place I had ever seen.  A hook for everything around the walls, fitted work units and bench. (A bit obsessively tidy, to my mind!)

After lunch, I left him to rest and set off for Crickhowell again, determined to find Craig y Cilau Nature Reserve this time, although the directions were still somewhat vague. I knew I had to take the fork in the road which put the Chapel on my right side. Then keep driving uphill until I came to a right turn (it was quite a long way). Then carry on climbing and eventually I would see a car park on my left.

As you can see from the header photo, it was worth finding. Oh my.  I was hoping to find some really rare flowers, but I only explored the main part of it, so will go back and explore more, including the woodland which is included in the Reserve.


A somewhat better panorama than the last one I took.  That's Crickhowell in the centre.


And another.  I was amused by the will I/won't I flowering on the May tree on the right.


The walk was an easy pretty level one along the old tram way.  My legs appreciated having no steep hills to climb.


Inevitably, the quarry had a lime kiln, though you can't see it very clearly in the photo and the tree gets in the way rather.



Saxifrage, probably Meadow. I'd love to claim it is the rare Rue-Leaved Saxifrage, whose stems and leaves (hidden by moss here) turn red when it is stressed - e.g. dry.  You can see that the stems are reddish anyway, but as you can see there was a lot of it so more likely the common or garden sort! I can just see a Meadow Saxifrage leaf too (middle top).



Now, with all the petals gone, no ID.  Is it just a common daisy?  I've never seen the seeds come up like this though. Update: yes, a common Daisy - found one like this in the yard today.


I thought this was Thyme, but it is surrounded by fleshier leaves, so not a clue. I am going through Roger Phillips' Wild Flowers of Britain, but think it will be Marjorie Blamey next - and then the stalwart copy of Keble which for many years was my main go-to botany book.


Lady's Bedstraw.

Maidenhair Spleenwort.  


The quarry face and grassed-over rubble heaps, and below, it's being used today in a totally different way.  There were two groups of young folk (gosh, that makes me sound old!) abseiling down the quarry face.  One mixed group, I briefly chatted to and said that was the worst bit over then.  A lass said, "Oh no, we have to go back UP again yet!"  The other group were all young men and I think from the Army.



The views - well, what can I say? Just amazing. This was the old camera, so some were not as sharp as they could be.





Since going there yesterday, I am reminded of something I read many years ago (Mrs Gaskell?) about certain loom weavers of Manchester and Lancashire as a whole, who could name every plant growing within a days' walk of their home.  They would sit weaving, with a botanical book open beside them. Amateur  Entomologists were just as keen. Others studied mathematics.  HERE is the paragraph in question.  The quest for knowledge.




19 comments:

  1. I love reading about your botanising walks, and well done on finding the Nature Reserve which looks a gem - as you say the grass isn’t going anywhere soon. Let us know if you identify the fleshy but hairy-leaved tufted wildflower. My grass-cutting marathon was due to no-mow since 15 April. I was planning on leaving it until the end of the month but with all the rain I thought I better get out there. A third of the garden grass still remains long with paths now mown through and half of our one acre garden is wildflower meadow (have never had so much yellow rattle) so am doing my bit for nature. Also pleased to say that I used for the first time our big green eGo battery mower with its chunky 56v battery which lasts for an hour of mowing. Now to learn the speed control which will make mowing much less exhausting. Grey and damp today but the weekend forecast looks good. Apparently we’ve had a quiet week in the shop so perhaps a rainy day will bring out the book browsers. Our blue tits fledged yesterday, I saw a host of Painted Lady butterflies and the cuckoo is still calling. Husband Simon went to his council-funded strength and balance exercise class in the village hall yesterday. He is by far the youngest participant but he has a laugh there. Love Elizabeth Gaskell (Wives and Daughters is my favourite) and the first antiquarian book I bought in the 1980s was an 1890 copy of Cranford for £3.50 in a shop in Burford. Have a good day BB and good on you for learning the jig-saw - is there nothing we women cannot do! Sarah x

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    1. Hi Sarah, glad you find my witterings of interest. I've loved wild flowers ever since I was 6 years old and a neighbour's daughter had to do collect some (and name them) for the Nature Table at school. I begged my dad to get me the Observer's Book of Wild Flowers and aged 6, began to learn about them. I'll keep you posted on the Looks-like-a-Thyme-but-isn't. Some of the rarest plants get a name mention but no illustration.

      I now have lawnmower envy! Tam was trying to persuade me to get one of those robot ones - I have to say, it's an appealing idea! Your garden sounds very good for nature - we had no-mow May out the front bit of "lawn" last year and I left the Primrose bank too, but it still comes back and bothers me when it turns to hay.

      Glad that your husband has a good exercise class. K was sent packing from the Falls Clinic - we can't do anything for you. Really helpful.

      Hope you have a good weekend in the bookshop.

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  2. So many plants that I've never seen and thank you for naming them and for the fantastic photos, really shows how low the "hills" are in Suffolk!

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  3. Wow, some gorgeous views there and that second photo just reminds me of the view from our living room window back in Wales. I miss the view more than anything, with my swing where I used to sit and look at the view coming a close second.

    Well done you on learning to use a jigsaw, I am hopeless with any power tools. Alan was going to have a perfectly tidy man cave but that never happened and it was only when I made him fetch things from the chest freezer in there as I couldn't safely navigate to it that he cleared a few pathways for me.

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  4. So many interesting wild flowers!! Love the views, what a gorgeous place to visit.

    God bless.

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  5. I see your reference to Keble - my first introduction to W Keble Martin's magnificent life's work was as a teenager trying to identify some sundews I had photographed on a peat bog near Durness in Sutherland whilst on holiday. One of our neighbours pulled out Keble and we spent a very informative hour looking through the sundews. Buying my own copy was my next book purchase very soon after.

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    1. Hello Will - he takes some beating, although sometimes it's nice to have a photographic illustration to give you a better idea. Sundews - there's me thinking there is just one sort! I stand corrected and thank you. I only know them from our days when we used to play down the old Brickyard in the valley behind our house. There was a "quaking bog" which we used to jump on, to see it move a few feet away and that was where the Sundews grew. We would get a grass stalk and watch them close on it, thinking it was a fly. We were easily pleased back in the day! Off to open Keble Martin on the Sundew page now. . .

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  6. What stunning views BB - really beautiful and a bonus its more or less level. It was lovely to see all the wild flowers. Fascinating information too on the weavers :) I have the Keble Martin and Blamey books - they are very very good :)

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    1. You said your son wanted to visit the Brecon Beacons - now's your chance! I had the luck of the Irish with my Blamey book. When it came out I really wanted a copy, but at £25 and money really tight, there was no way. Imagine my absolute DELIGHT when I rounded the corner at the Strand Car Boot sale (held in a multi storey car park and always bitterly cold in the winter, especially at 5.30 in the morning) and found an unwanted as-new copy for just £3. I nearly bit the girl's hand off!

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  7. I bought Keble Martin’s British Flora from my bookshop last year and have been searching for your wildflower. My ideas: wild thyme or wild marjoram except it’s too early for both of these or maybe bog pimpernel which I see is found at Craig y Cilau. I will keep looking … Sarah x

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  8. That looks like a good drive out of Crickhowell to find the reserve though worth it from your effort.

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    1. It's about 33 miles from here, and I used the A479 from Talgarth. Cuts off a corner.

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  9. Great Sarah. Thank you. I have been at work in the stables today, and baking, so haven't got very far. I wonder if it's Thyme growing through something else? Slightly hairy leaves by the look of it.

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  10. Your main photo of hay being made on a steep incline reminds me of seeing tractors climbing up impossible slopes in Switzerland. Here, our grass grows conveniently level.

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    1. Oh they'll cut anywhere they can keep the tractor on its tyres Tom! This early in the year it'll be the first Silage Cut. Hay is end of June/early July. Later July if the field is an SSSI.

      Can't do a walk round here without a hill in it!

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  11. Envious of the wild flowers you are seeing Jennie. I have the Blamey book and the Phillips book. His specimans were always rather dead looking.

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    1. Indeed, the best photos are of the rare plants he didn't pick! Still, it's helped me greatly down the years so no complaints.

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  12. When the plane flew over England and I saw those neat little squares of green hemmed all around by the hedgerows, I actually thought I was going to cry. I had only seen the view in pictures. It was so wonderful to see it with my own eyes. I had begun to think that it never would happen.

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    1. Haste ye back Debby. There is so much to see here, so much history.

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