Letters to the Editor - June 2011

I write in response to the item (Diary, April) suggesting that the National Trust requires £1.5 million pounds to carry out work on Castle Drogo.

Back in 2004 the cost was £4 million. Now it’s £11 million. Either the National Trust is releasing unreliable information — or there’s an error somewhere.

The trust has an established view on letting Nature take its course when it comes to coastal property they own and have responsibility for. They refused to implement work in 1999/2000 on a revetment at the base of cliffs at Birling Gap in Sussex. Subsequently the then Secretary of State for the Environment refused planning permission for the work to go ahead.

Turn now to a travesty of a building erected to satisfy the ego of self-made grocer millionaire Julius Drewe: Castle Drogo. Drewe wanted a castle and asked the architect Sir Edwin Lutyens to build him one. Because of the demands of Drewe, the difficulties Lutyens had in designing a building constructed in granite, together with the cost-cutting and ‘economies’ required during the extended construction time (1911 to 1930s), it is no wonder that the building leaked from very early on. 

The trust, which in my opinion was misguided in accepting the property when it was offered the rapidly deteriorating building in 1974, is now after restoring it. Rather than ‘letting Nature take its course’, as with the coastline, and letting the building slowly fall into disrepair and ruin, it wants the public to cough up millions of pounds to shore up, repair and maintain this ill-conceived, badly designed and poorly built folly.

I am a member of the trust, but will not be coerced into contributing for such misuse of time and resources to keep what even Sir Edwin Lutyens might agree was not one of his best.

Michael R Sparkes, by email

I very much enjoy reading your excellent publication every month and look forward to each new issue as I can be sure it will be full of interest.

I greatly enjoyed the article ‘Where the pleasure-bird whistles’ (April) as
I feel certain birds enhance our wonderful countryside very much.

Readers may be interested to know a swallow returned here for the summer at 6.55pm on Tuesday 29th March and went to roost in my garden shed one hour or so later that evening. Swallows have used my shed as a nesting site for approximately forty years now, but they always return between 5th and 26th April, never before in March — is this very unusual? Sign of a good summer to come, perhaps?

Thank you once again for The Countryman, long may it continue.

Miss Jean Sharples, Eardisley, near Hereford

Trees are part of British heritage — often taken for granted. There are now thousands of trees being suffo­cated by ivy. Everywhere you look you see trees completely covered with only a few sticks poking out of the top.

Environmentalists say it is good for insects, birds and butterflies. I haven’t seen any improvement or increase in their numbers to the contrary.

Some ivy has a place in the scheme of things for its early pollen. Then the healthy trees take over. They produce blossom, pollen and fruit; all essential for insects and birds, and incidentally for humans.

The old country people knew the cycle of the seasons and kept plants in balance. Ivy was kept under control.

Please look about you and make up your own minds. This is a plea for common sense and moderation.

Mrs E M Coulson, Polstead

Having read David Otter’s article ‘A leap in the dark’ (March) I thought you would be interested to hear about something that was recently related to me by my fellow resident in the sheltered accommodation in which we live.

He is a true country­man from Dorset and Hampshire, and he told me how, many years ago, he was working with others in a field. At lunchtime three or four sat at the side of the field to eat; as they did so, above them a lapwing was being mobbed by a predator, and this led to a commotion in the sky with many frantic turns and dives.

Suddenly, the lapwing landed by them and stood under the legs of one of them whilst the chaser alighted and stood nearby. After a while the lapwing moved to one side, only to be promptly chased by the predator, at which the lapwing returned to his refuge beneath the legs.

This led to a period of stalemate until the larger bird flew off and the lapwing was able to make good his escape.

Could there be a clearer example of a wild creature using its intelligence to use what refuge was to hand?

T A Coad, Eastleigh

I recall with amusement our old part-time gardener ‘Nana’ Bolden holding out a blunt pair of shears and, cocking his thumb towards the hedge he had been asked to trim, saying “I can’t cut ’­em with Ee”.

He had driven cartloads of hay to London between the wars when it was the fuel on which horse traffic relied.

Julian A C Royle, Woodbridge

We welcome readers' letters, which should be sent to:
Countryman, The Water Mill, Broughton Hall,
Skipton, North Yorkshire BD23 3AG
Or email: editorial@thecountryman.co.uk

The editor reserves the right to edit letters for length and clarity.