{"id":11562,"date":"2022-03-08T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-03-07T23:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbccountryfile\/?post_type=purple_issue&p=11562"},"modified":"2022-03-23T15:48:51","modified_gmt":"2022-03-23T14:48:51","slug":"spring-in-the-garden-of-england","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbccountryfile\/2022\/03\/08\/spring-in-the-garden-of-england\/","title":{"rendered":"Spring in the garden of England"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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DISCOVER: KENT<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

SPRING IN THE GARDEN OF ENGLAND<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Famed for its pretty orchards, ancient woodlands, rolling fields and historic gardens, Kent\u2019s countryside comes alive during the season of renewal, says Simon Richmond<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n

Countryfile in Kent <\/strong><\/em>Watch Charlotte Smith and Matt Baker in Kent\u2019s High Weald, 6 March; available on iPlayer<\/span><\/p>\n\n

I<\/span>t<\/strong> is spring at Brogdale Farm, near the old market town of Faversham in north-east Kent. Amid the orchards of the National Fruit Collection, sunlight filters through fresh green leaves and the ethereal pink and white petals of cherry blossom, dappling the ground below.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

Picnic blankets are spread around the trees, with groups of visitors enjoying hanami \u2013 \u2018flower viewing\u2019\u2013 the Japanese custom of appreciating the transient beauty of the blossoms. My skin tingles as the lightest of breezes transforms the orchard into a snow globe of petals. The surrounding meadows are a pointillist landscape of buttercups, daisies and white clover, buzzing with honeybees awakened from their winter slumbers in Brogdale\u2019s hives and busily playing their crucial part in the spring revival.<\/p>\n\n

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Find these old cherry trees in full bloom on a stroll around the pretty village of Goodnestone in late April <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n
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A riot of cherry and apple blossoms, from soft pinks to bold cerise, greet visitors to the National Fruit Collection at Brogdale Farm near Faversham <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n

Blossoming fruit trees have been a feature of the Kent landscape in spring for at least 2,000 years, ever since the Romans brought their taste for apples and pears to Britain. From February with plums, through to the end of May for apples, Brogdale\u2019s 60 hectares are awash with flu y clouds of blossom, predominantly white, with pink and rose from the apple and ornamental cherry trees. It\u2019s a spectacle that, according to Pippa Palmar of Kent Wildlife Trust (KWT) and a former expert at the National Fruit Collection, is \u201clike ballet dancers pirouetting through the grass\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

Fruit blossoms are just one element of Kent\u2019s bounteous seasonal offering. This is a county of gorgeously diverse landscapes, studded with pretty villages and blessed with two offcial Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB): the Kent Downs and the High Weald. The Downs is 70% ancient woodlands, where the spring flora can include masses of wood anemone and bluebells.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

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One of the most beautiful villages of the Kentish Weald, Smarden boasts a well-preserved oast house, a 14th-century church and 17th-century half-timbered buildings<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n

\u201cThe lightest of breezes transforms the orchard into a snow globe of petals\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

On these uplands you will also find pockets of chalk grassland, where the nutrient-poor soil is ideal for wildflowers, such as cowslips, bird\u2019s-foot trefoil and spider orchids, as well as the animals, birds and invertebrates that feed on them.<\/p>\n\n

South of the Downs come the clay soils of Kent\u2019s Low Weald, more suited to farming. Rising above those farm fields are oast houses, in which hops, one of Kent\u2019s key crops, were once dried. With that process now mechanised, these striking pieces of architecture, conically shaped and topped with a white cowl, nowadays serve as homes and holiday lets.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

Oast houses are one of the most distinctive features of this heartland of Kent, east of the river Medway. Spanning from the northern Faversham fruit belt down through the ancient forests of Blean to the gently rolling Wealden countryside around Sissinghurst and Scotney Castle, it\u2019s all an absolute joy to explore in spring.<\/p>\n\n

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The late spider orchid is one of the UK\u2019s rarest orchids, now only found on chalk grasslands of the Kent Downs<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n

ORCHARDS FOR EVERYONE<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n

Henry VIII is often given credit for branding Kent the \u2018Garden of England\u2019, supposedly after enjoying a bowl of Kentish cherries.<\/p>\n\n

Traditional orchards on Brogdale\u2019s scale are now noticeably absent from Kent. But what you will find, if you look carefully, is a handful of smaller community orchards, such as Cherry Downs, also known as Lenham Orchard, tucked away a short walk o the North Downs Way, eight miles south-west of Faversham.<\/p>\n\n

At Cherry Downs, you can savour the blossoms of sour Morello cherry, sweet cherry and plum trees while enjoying commanding views from the greensand ridge out towards Romney Marsh. Cherry Downs also has apple and pear trees and a cobnut plantation \u2013 cobnuts (a variety of hazelnut) being another Kent horticultural speciality. It\u2019s one of 15 community orchards that are part of the Kent Orchards for Everyone project, started by the Kent Downs AONB (<\/span>kentorchards.org.uk<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n

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Sunlight dapples a carpet of bluebells at RSPB Blean Woods near Canterbury The coppiced woodland of East Blean provides the perfect habitat for rare heath fritillary butterflies<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n
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NIGHTINGALES IN KENT<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Kent is a stronghold of the nightingale. These shy migratory birds, who build their nests on scrub and woodland, have a trilling song that is synonymous with spring. According to Chas Holt, a nightingale expert at Kent Wildlife Trust, the bird is now a red-listed conservation priority, its population having declined precipitously in recent years. But Chattenden Woods and Lodge Hill, on the Hoo Peninsula in Kent\u2019s far north, is now one of the best places to hear nightingales in the UK. Over recent years, wildlife organisations have campaigned to save Lodge Hill, a Site of Special Scientific Interest, from being developed for housing. The proposed number of houses has been scaled back from 2,000 to 500, but the threats to nightingales remain. \u201cWe\u2019re now at a point where protection of the best sites of nightingales and improved habitat management elsewhere is necessary if we are going to secure their future,\u201d says Holt.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section>\n\n

Aeons before orchards were planted, Kent was covered with dense forests. Blean Woods National Nature Reserve is a series of adjacent ancient woodlands north of Canterbury, including Thornden Wood, East and West Blean Woods and Clowes Wood. A spring walk here is packed with interest, from leaves appearing on the oaks and silver birch, to catkins on the coppiced sweet chestnuts and wildflowers such as common cow-wheat (the food of the very rare heath fritillary butterfly) speckling the undergrowth.<\/p>\n\n

If you notice a vibrating mound of soil, twigs, leaves and pine needles, it will be a nest of southern wood ants; they are at their most active in spring as the queen of each colony starts to breed. Listen up and you may catch the rich musicality of nightingales singing or the tap against timber of the lesser spotted woodpecker, Britain\u2019s rarest woodpecker species.<\/p>\n\n

GARDEN GLORY<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n

By April, Kent\u2019s many splendid gardens are bursting into colourful life. Crowds of visitors descend on historic estates, such as Leeds Castle, five miles east of Maidstone, where swathes of daffodils in shades of sunshine yellow, lemon and tangerine sway in the breeze beside the moat.<\/span><\/p>\n\n