Post by Dave on Nov 12, 2018 16:52:22 GMT
Milber & Ben Stedhams Wood 12th November 2018
I was on call today and when the clocked ticked past 7am I knew all my fellow drivers had turned up for work and I could have my day off. After putting off my planned woods and river shoot yesterday and ending up at Coleton Fishacre instead, I was hoping to do it today.
But once again too many heavy rain showers made my mind up to stay more local and not drive the hour it would have taken me to get to the chosen location. I might try and do that shoot on Sunday the next time I will have a day off work.
A few weeks ago I did a walk and photo shoot in Bradley Woods in Newton Abbot, a place I often played in as a child. But the woods I spent much more time in as I grew up on Buckland was Milber Woods. This wood have been on my must visit again list for a long time now and I do not think I could have chosen a better time of year to go there.
People say times have changed and they really have as far as children growing up are concerned. Back when I was a young boy there were no such things as playstations and we had to go out and make our own fun.
Hard to believe for some I am sure, but as ten year olds we would go out with sheath knives in our possession, but we only used them to cut down suitable branches to make a catapult, or carve our undying love of our latest girlfriend into a tree bark.
We also had some very realistic looking toy guns we would take into the woods with us to play war games, try and do that these days and armed police will soon be surrounding you. Where has all the innocence gone? When did all this knife crime start?
We also would made some incredible carts to ride around on in the woods, planks of wood hammered together with old pram wheels added that were found at the local rubbish tip. We even made our own bikes from parts found on the very same tips, no top of the range mountain bikes for us.
As I waked through milber woods one memory came flashing back, my big brother had made a great cart and he let me drive it. He could not believe I steered it through a small gap between two trees and then smashed it up hitting a tree as I went through a much bigger gap.
I started the walk from the town side of the woods, it really feels like walking through an avenue and you can just imagine stage coaches driving along there in days past. I do not know if they ever did, but both milber woods and the adjacent Ben Stedhams wood, were once part of the extensive Haccombe estate.
The wood is made up of Beech, Pine and Oak trees, some are very old and there are now many much younger trees. Sadly as in all woods a number of fine trees have come down over the years, but some of the older ones I did recognise. One of those I remember I had carved Dave loves Julie into the bark, I did have a look, but that had long worn away.
Milber Woods seemed much smaller than I remembered it, but then some of it has been lost to housing over the years. There was once an area in the woods we called the common, a grassed area full of gorse bushes, but that was also swallowed up for housing.
A wood once filled with the laughter of children having fun, but now more likely to only have people walking their dogs through it. Much smaller it might be, but it is still a very beautiful wood that I am sure could tell many stories if it could.
The Ben Stedhams Wood is much smaller than Milber Woods and seems a bit scruffy by comparison. At the end of this woods is the Milber Down hillfort, an Iron Age multivallate hill-slope fortification, consisting of four roughly concentric and fairly widely spaced ramparts with outer ditches. The hillfort was abandoned after the Roman conquest. Roman coin finds and the medieval pottery indicates settlement activity on or near the hillfort after its use in the Iron Age.
Another very enjoyable afternoon that brought back some wonderful memories.
