22 July 2019: Yet another interesting week at Monday’s coffee morning!
Lynda brought her Dad’s amazing collection of photographs of old Pinhoe and we were delighted that her Mum, Beryl Hitchcock, was able to join us too. There is such a resource of interest and local knowledge in this lovely group and it’s a pleasure to be able to join their meetings.
Ebbie and Lynda
We loved the artwork on Hitchcock & Son’s invoices!
Thanks to an invitation from Margaret, I’ve joined a couple of Monday coffee mornings in the Church Hall. These fabulous ladies are a mine of information and I’ve been making loads of notes each time. They’ve put me right on several points and identified so many people in photographs from Chips Barber’s books. Also, there were THREE dairies in Pinhoe! More as soon as I can write up my notes // Kate
Emily Stallworthy from Devon Wildlife Trust visited Pinhoe this week.
Devon Wildlife Trust have been campaigning for the government’s new Environment Bill to include important protections for the network of wildlife habitats across England, to protect wild places and provide havens for wildlife. With the removal of so many trees and hedgerows across Pinhoe, I asked DWT whether there was any support they could offer us, especially in light of Exeter’s new Valley Parks project.
We walked around the newly accessible fields bordering the David Wilson Homes development and noted the amazing range of meadow species flourishing there. With Meadow Brown butterflies, a hum of bees and even a flypast by the local woodpecker, Emily was impressed by the potential of this space.
Although developers have dumped detritus across the site, even the mounds of groundworks soil have been seeded with grasses and wildflowers, indicating that this area was demonstrably viable as a superb wildflower meadow and could quickly recover.
Emily suggested the area could do with scrub encroachment management and would benefit from meadow restoration with some natural perennial seeding. There is great potential for a patchwork of different habitats, opportunities for wild play and dead wood areas to encourage wildlife.
We walked up to the top field by the Church and the sound of grasshoppers was amazing! It would be great to find out whether this field is named. It is home to one of only 2 vintage trees noted in Pinhoe – a fantastic old oak tree.
Emily photographing the mix of trees on the Cheynegate linescape
As a community group, Emily has advised we could apply for funding to plant new trees. There are various pots of funding for this at the moment – especially as there are also many ash trees in Pinhoe which will need replacing as part of the national response to ash die-back.
With so many problems Pinhoe is having with new developments (particularly with Linden Homes destroying the hedgerow lane leading to Gypsy Hill) there are many opportunities to repair and replace areas which have been destroyed.
Thank you to Ebbie for organising our table at the Fete. It was a lovely day and great to meet so many people. The strawberries and cherries on our stall went down well on such a hot day and several people joined our contact list.
We are beginning to map the scope of our project by the treescape – it seems a good way to identify the edges of the village since the electoral map is such a huge area.
We also asked everyone to help us identify any local trees which need looking after – whether it’s protection or maintenance. Thanks for all the suggestions on the day and please keep the ideas coming in!
