Dunsford Village Show

After a great day at the Bicton College open day the next venue for the Dartmoor National Trust show tent will be at the Dunsford Village Show on Sat 4th July between 12pm and 5pm opposite the Iron Mills on the B3212 Exeter to Mortonhamstead road.

This is a classic village show with something for everybody and very familly orientated. For full information visit their website at http://dunsfordshow.co.uk/default.aspx

The National Trust stand will have an eclectic mix of childrens activities, information, demonstrations and merchandise. Including top quality charcoal produced from the National Trust owned St Thomas Cleave Wood only 1 mile from Dunsford, hows that for locally produced!

Climate change - warmer and stormier

The Met Office and the Government have published their latest predictions on the future climate of the country. It is now obvious that human induced climate change is really kicking in. In the south west it means rising sea levels, warmer drier summers along with wetter warmers winters. Added on top of this, the weather is likely to be more extreme - longer harsher droughts and bigger stronger storms. The BBC Devon website reports the story as follows.

Don't for one minute think we are going to have an idyllic Mediterranean Climate - a place we have all been dreaming of. Life will change dramatically and if we don't change there will be trouble.

There is a comprehensive introductory website and a more detailed technical one where the data can be manipulated to meet the users needs. If you want further information on this I suggest you visit my climate change blog where you can find more details.

Dartmoor is in for difficult times under these scenarios - the wildlife, farming and landscape has evolved under much wetter cooler regimes and therefore change is inevitable.

The National Trust will be studying carefully the new models and soon we will announce what we think the implications are for our Properties. Your views would be very welcome

Solar powered water at Parke Walled Garden

During our restoration of the Walled Garden at Parke in Bovey Tracey we found an old well which held water.

We have how acquired a solar powered water pump to lift the water into a large tank so that it can be used to water the plants in the Walled Garden. The project was funded by Yorkshire Bank.

This picture shows even on a damp drizzly day there is enough light to make the pump work. It is an impressive feat as the well is 12 metres deep. Gus Fergusson (Area Warden) and Andy Case (Compliance Officer), both with the National Trust have championed this project and brought it to fruition.

The new water supply will be used by Bovey Climate Action and the National Trust who jointly manage the Walled Garden. This green (but clear!) water supply means that we don't have to use purified mains water which will save us money and produce no carbon dioxide in its supply.

Cut your carbon footprint

This little post card gives you lot of ideas on how you can cut your carbon footprint. Some of the ideas are perhaps a bit contentious for you but others I am sure you are either doing already or will be happy to start. Click on the post card to enlarge it.

Why not create your own mind map detailing what you can do or what your school class can do?

Thanks to Bovey Climate Action who gave it to me when I went to see their showing of the Age of Stupid - a must see climate change film Pete Postlethwaite stars as a man living alone in the devastated world of 2055, looking at old footage from 2008 and asking: why didn’t we stop climate change when we had the chance? Check out their web site - it gives details of where the film is showing near to you.

Bicton College Open Day and Country Fair

This is the first outing for the Dartmoor team for the show season. The Dartmoor stand will be at the Bicton College open day and country fair on Saturday 13th June. It's a great day out with many stands, events and activities; the Barrow boys semi finalists of Britain's Got Talent will be performing.
We will have children's activities, demonstrations, information, recruiting, NT merchandise and woodland products on our stand. Why not come and visit us for a chat? We will try and answer any questions you may have.
We will be selling raffle tickets where every ticket sold will pay to plant a tree on a Dartmoor property as part of our woodland regeneration programme.

For further information go to http://www.bicton.ac.uk/

Later in the year we will be attending the Dunsford, Lustleigh, Okehampton and Chagford shows watch out for news on all of these.

Working Holiday at Parke

The National Trust Parke estate recently hosted a very sucessful Working Holiday. An enthusiastic group of people varying in age from 28 to 71 set about building 100m of footpath through some very wet patches along the banks of the River Bovey.

Work involved barrowing nearly 40 tons of scalpings (small stone) across a muddy field but by the end of the week - this was the spectacular result! Many thanks to all for the hard work.

The National Trust runs over 400 Woking Holidays each year. If you would like to be involved on one of these look at https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/main/w-trust/w-volunteering/w-workingholidays.htm

2010 calendars are in at The National Trust shop, Widecombe in the Moor

They're here, yes a month earlier than last year due to the demand from our overseas visitors. There is a great choice this year from The National Trust calendars including Gardens, Special places plus a great calendar entitled ' Back from the Brink' showing all the endangered species that we are protecting and bringing back from the brink of extinction.

This calendar, with its wonderful photography is £5.00.

As for local calendars - Tracey Elliot Reep our local photographer from Widecombe has produced a fabulous calendar with great pictures covering the whole of Dartmoor - a must to see.

This calendar comes with envelope and 4 free postcards and covers 13 months (january 2011)

we look forward to seeing you at our shop.

Food Glorious Food - pumpkins

The National Trust is giving away free thousands of packets of pumpkin and rocket seeds to encourage people to grow their own food.

I picked up a packet of pumpkin seeds from the National Trust stand at the Devon Show a week or so ago. Here they are now!

Follow their progress over the coming months - will they produce pumpkins or will the slugs get them?

Find out more about growing your own food by visiting the National Trust's special website - Food Glorious Food.

If you want some free seeds visit a National Trust property over the next few days or visit the Trust stand at the Royal Cornwall Show today or tomorrow.

Teign Valley Charcoal Burning

As well as cutting up the larger pieces of snow-felled tree for Timber, we at Teign Valley have been making best use of the smaller branches... As charcoal.

Our new Kiln allows us produce small quantities of local charcoal from our existing woodland operations, just as they did in the Teign Valley hundreds of years ago. In the first picture you see the kiln having not long been lit, with the lid open while the fire takes hold. The lid will then be shut when the kiln is so hot that water "sizzles" on it's surface.

You can see the fire through one of the vents at the base of the kiln. Once the kiln is shut, these vents are controlled to regulate the amount of air allowed into the kiln, so that the majority of the wood is "cooked" not burned. Once all the water and volatile compounds are driven off, the smoke coming from the chimneys turns blue, and it is time to close up the kiln and leave it to go out over night.



The following morning it is opened and the charcoal removed, graded and bagged.

These days most charcoal finds it's way onto the BBQ, but in it's heyday it was used for products such as fertiliser and gunpowder.


Charcoal made at various National Trust sites on dartmoor will be sold through various outlets and at agricultural shows- more on this to follow.

It's an ill blizzard...

...that blows no one any good.

The snow earlier in the year may have been very pretty but certainly gave us a lot of work to do in the Teign Valley.

We spent an entire month clearing up trees which had fallen over due to the weight of snow on their branches. These trees blocked paths, tracks, driveways and roads, took down fences, signposts gates and one dust bin!

Having cut up the larger trees, we "skidded" (dragged) them using a tractor to a nearby meadow/ roadside, there to await the next phase of their existense...

As timber! A local sawyer/timber framer was employed to cut up our fallen Oaks and convert them into timber for bridges/gates/stiles/waymarkers etc.

This procludes the need for us to buy in timber from over seas e.g. French oak and means we can keep things local. The timber will be put into the longest term use possible so that all the carbon it contains is locked up for as long as possible before being released back into the carbon cycle.

The gaps created by these fallen trees are already being filled by young trees this summer.