Venison

This week we put the first fresh venison of the season into the shop. Our butcher prepares steaks, loin, haunch, diced, burgers and sausages in our on-site butchery, and some of the qualified staff and volunteers help with the packaging and labelling. Volunteer David was a huge help this week, spending several days weighing up and packing venison for us, thanks again David!

The Countryside, Parks and Gardens Manager for North Shropshire (or Bob as we like to call him) came into the office the other day with  beautiful little find - an abandoned nest found in a utilities metre box on the side of one of the estate cottages. With a bit of help from a book I've identified the eggs as those of blue tits - if anyone knows differently then please let me know. The eggs are tiny, about 1cm long and pale with speckles (just like a Cadbury mini egg). It's a shame the eggs failed to hatch this year but what a great find for our engagement wardens to use and show people:

Winter arrives

Winter has well and truly arrived - today we spotted a group of redwings flying over us. Last year I shared some pictures on here that I took of redwings in the holly bushes outside Visitor Reception so we will have to see if they come back again. The hollies have a good show of berries already so fingers crossed! Redwings are a migrant species, arriving from Scandinavia in October and November and leaving again in March. They are a small thrush with a creamy pale stripe above the eye and dusky red patch under the wing (hence the name):

Another sign that winter is here is preparations for Frost Fair have begun. The huge marquees are going up over the next few days and the wardens are gathering staff and volunteers to debrief the Car Parking Plan. With nearly 12,000 visitors last year it is essential that we have a large team of people controlling the thousands of cars that will be coming on to site. We are also wishing hard for a cold snap! Rain and wet ground are not friends with car tyres...

Finally, the deer cull has started as of last weekend, so if you are coming to Attingham for a walk on Saturday morning please remember the deer park is closed until mid-morning when the stalker finishes and lets the duty warden know that it is safe to reopen. This means that we will have venison for sale in the shop again by the weekend. We are also feeding the deer in earnest to make sure that they enter the winter in the best possible condition, and you can watch the deer being fed at 2pm on Saturdays and Sundays and during the school holidays. We have changed the feeding area from previous years now that the new WWII walk is open, so to watch us just walk to the top of the deer park from the main gate and stand along the first 50 metres or so of the new walk. Rumour has it that there will be elves feeding the deer closer to Christmas...

Craig throws out fodder beet for the deer to munch on

 

Willows and walks

Well, I'm finally back at work after a nasty cold and catching up with the weeks work. On Monday, the volunteers went coppicing again at Wenlock Edge to get stakes and binders which they then used on the hedge they are laying at Berwick New House farm. The hedge is coming along nicely now, so soon we will move on to the next one at Brompton.

While half the team laid more hedge today, the rest of us went down to the bridges near the deer park and pollarded some of the willows. Some of the smaller cuttings will be used to make a willow arch in the play area; larger timber will be dried for a few years before being used in the log burners. The rest of the cut wood was burned on site to keep the area tidy and prevent it from being washed down the river in the next flood. There is still plenty of work to do in that area so we will have another day there soon.

 

 

The Park is still full of beautiful autumn colours and we are getting some really positive feedback about the new walk. We are now feeding the deer every Saturday and Sunday at 2pm and visitors can watch the herd having lunch by standing at the top of the deer park where the new walk splits away to the right from the older deer park walk near the Repton Oak. The deer are in great condition heading into the winter, so there will be some quality venison coming to the shop over the next few weeks - the first cull of the season is this weekend. Keep an eye on the chiller in the shop next time you pass through.

While out walking Max a few days ago along the deer park walk I came across this impressive colony of bracket fungus - there is a stump under there somewhere!

New walk!

James and Andrew digging in a new
path from the new bridges...

The wardens have been working all hours this week to get a new walk ready for this weekend. The walk takes you through the deer park into a totally new area of the park where previously the public have never been able to go. As well as showing you the park from a new visual perspective the walk also leads you through some of the history of the estate by incorporating the WWII path that we cleared last year and the site of the war time infirmary. The path is clearly marked out with blue-topped posts, and is approximately 1.75 miles long from the stables and back. As you enter the deer park you will see the posts leading you either straight on or immediately right- the choice is yours! As always in the deer park it is vital that dogs are kept on leads and under close control as the deer are easily stressed by animals chasing them, but Max has been on the new walk and thoroughly approves so I hope all of you dog walkers will enjoy it soon. I would also like to take the opportunity to thank all of our volunteers and trainees who have worked so hard on getting this walk ready - all that gate hanging, digging, raking, bridge-building, tree cutting, fencing, stone-shoveling and sweeping is very much appreciated!

The working holiday team getting stuck in

The week before last also kept me bust with a working holiday group. We were coppicing for hazel stakes and binders along Wenlock Edge of day one, then hedgelaying for the rest of the week at Brompton on the south side of the Estate. In just a few days, the team managed to lay and bind 50 meters of hedge - pretty impressive for a group of beginners! They received a day of training from expert hedgelayer Karl Liebscher to get them going, and then battled wind and rain to get the job done. Good work!


All this wet weather has created the perfect conditions for fungi around the park so you may want to bring your camera as you walk around. There is fly agaric near the the start of the woodland walk in the north end of the park (the classic red mushroom with white spots used in so many cartoons - but poisonous so please do not touch!). There are other fungi cropping up all over the place in grassland and on dead wood. I took this picture along the new walk yesterday:

Enjoy the new walk, let me know what you think!

I need to find my wellingtons!

Rain rain rain... Sometimes in this job you have to just grit your teeth and keep going and remind yourself that come the warm sunny days, everyone else is jealous of your job! Last week saw some pretty incredible rain and we used the opportunity to keep under cover and cut some logs. Well, that was the theory - in practice several of the volunteers managed to stay dry-ish splitting logs in the barn while the rest of us stood outside chainsawing rounds of timber and using the processor. I discovered that my chainsaw boots are not water resistant in any way and that cups of coffee from the kelly kettle are a lifesaver in such conditions!

The River Tern in the foreground... and the newly flooded meadow
beyond being enjoyed by some swans

There is normally a lot more bridge on show!

Last week also saw us finishing a new fence around the Greedy Pig, delivering several loads of logs, preparing Cronkhill for opening with a bit of strimming, taking down the tents and marquees from Sunnycroft and setting up for our Harvest Fair in the Walled Garden. We had a tree down across one of the paths on the Woodland Walk - an old rotten oak that was well back from the path but tall enough to reach it with its upper branches. Colin and I cleared it, along with a few other smaller trees in the area to keep it safe and tidy.

More rain on the way?

We also have a new member of the team to introduce - Craig is joining the wardens for a 12 month traineeship and started last week. He is a little camera shy (but I'm sure I'll get him snapped some time) but made a great discovery while out in the woods - he found this egg, nearly completely buried in the dirt, in perfect condition! A bit of research leads me to believe it is a swan egg - but how did it come to be buried near the Mile Walk?! Anyway, a mystery to ponder - welcome Craig!



I'm lucky to be on holiday for the next two weeks but took Max for a walk around Attingham early one morning so here are a few early autumn photos. See you back at work!

 

7 Days canoe fun!

This post comes with the help from volunteer warden Martin - thank you for all the pictures! Martin helped to build the jetty that the canoes were launched from at the 7 Days event and then he and his wife enjoyed a paddle along the Tern on the Saturday. It looks like a lot of fun, plus they even spotted some otters! I'm very jealous - I have seen otters along the Severn but not yet on the Tern.

Hi Martin!

It's a little blurry but unmistakably an otter

Seeing Attingham from a whole new perspective

Autumn arrives

I need to update the last month! It has been very busy over the last of the summer holidays, the 7 Days event and the start of autumn (plus I had a week of holiday somewhere in there too). Never a dull moment!

7 Days was a success with some fantastic talks, walks and events to take part in. The pond dipping on the deer park was very popular, plus the experts spotted and photographed a species of dragonfly that I believe has not been found there before - a black darter (Sympetrum danae). I missed seeing it but its one to look out for next year - they are the only black dragonfly in the UK (males being black, the females a dark brown) and are very attractive. The scaffold platform in the orchard has been a great success, offering a fantastic view of the walled garden and orchard from above - you don't realise how big it is (or how straight the gardeners manage to plant their rows!) until you see it from high up. Hopefully there will be similar events in the future for visitors, volunteers and staff to enjoy.

Milly chisels a post to allow the rails
to fit snugly in place

In the last few weeks we have also had some big weekend events - the Carriage Parade and Food Fair. I managed to miss them while I was on holiday but am told they were popular and kept our staff busy! This weekend you can go along to Sunnycroft in Wellington for their Michaelmas Fair, and the weekend after that is Attingham's Harvest Fair so that will keep me busy. The wardens help with the setting up of most large events and it often takes a day or more to set up all the tents and marquees, transport tables, chairs and other equipment (including a large solid oak apple press for the events mentioned above!) and prepare the car parks; then there is another days work to take it all down again.

Buffy and Martin dig in a gate post

Now that we are into autumn once more our volunteers have started to get ready for hedgelaying by coppicing hazel stakes and binders on Wenlock Edge. This week the teams have also been building a fence in the new play field that will enclose the Greedy Pig catering unit in its new position - the posts are sweet chestnut (long lasting without  the need for chemical treatment like softwood posts), the rails douglas fir from Dudmaston Estate and we will be using elm, sycamore and hazel from around the Attingham Estate to make the uprights.
Work continues on a new walk that will be opening in the next month or two, and we are also processing logs when possible - now that the chilly autumn evenings have arrived the log orders are coming in fast! We sell seasoned hardwood at £90 per delivered load (within the Shrewsbury area) as a way to make use of  trees felled when thinning out woodland or to use up timber that is not suitable for milling.

Finally, a Max update - he is growing fast and loving his walks around the park. Here he is after a particularly energetic one!