Wildlife Circus

Four generations of my family have played and spent time walking ‘Over the Fields’, as we refer to the stretch of land along the Hogsmill. My paternal grandparents moved to Tolworth from Wexford, Ireland, in the 1940s, and these fields, back then much more substantive and less developed, and in some places still farmed, were an important reminder of and connection to rural Home for them.  Two years ago I started a writing and walking project with my father and son accompanying me on regular walks, where we talked about my dad’s experiences of playing in this space as a child in the 1950s, and where my son has had a chance to experience and get to know the space himself. I documented the walks with photographs, and then began to write poems about some of my father’s memories, my own memories, and our new experiences of walking and spending time there. The poems, photos and research eventually took shape as a poetry map, which was published last September and launched with an...

The South East Rivers Trust have been knocking out the weirs along the Hogsmill. Last year they undertook improvements at Knights Park near Kingston Town Centre see previous posts on the  Hogsmill-valley .  At the start of the project there were  fifteen obstructions on the river preventing fish from passing. These included weirs, culverts, concrete bridge footings and the gauging station near Watersplash Close. This results in the available habitat being highly fragmented causing bottlenecks at various life stages, making some fish species very vulnerable.  The concrete bridge footings at the A240 Kingston Bypass formed a complete barrier to fish passage. A rock ramp has now been built to drown out the weir and increase the depth of water under the bridge. To facilitate vehicular access, some of the vegetation has been removed, which will allow light into the dingy floor and breathe new life into the linear  copse, where ivy has smothered the...