The Old Vicarage B&B, Little Ouse

When we moved in to the house five years ago, you couldn’t drive a car to the front of the house. In fact the trees were out of control, branches had broken the chimney stacks and roof had suffered damage. At the back of the house you couldn’t even open the back windows for the branches pressing against them. The house couldn’t breathe, it was being consumed by nature.

the first picture above were taken after two years, you can now see the house. In the first picture you can see what look like large stumps near a small twelve ton caterpillar. Five of those trees fell across the drive in the bad storm we had three years ago. You can see the size of the trees remaining dwarfing the house. they were now leaning towards the house, so it was either lose this trees or lose the house if one hit it.

The copse threatening the house, had before the War been Scotch pine, that was used in the matchstick factory (that is the tale we were told). However, a more reliable source, a tree surgeon told us that the poplars which are planted in the copse and by the row in the Fens were planted after the War. The reason being that fast growing trees were needed to replenish the countries wood reserve. This was why all felling orders were historically managed, to ensure that a sufficient reserve of harvestable wood was retained in the event of a war for coffins, ammunition boxes, etc. This has now been superseded by environmental concerns and of course the use of plastics!

Back to the trees. The Fen earth is silty and does not hold a shallow rooted tree well. The poplars should have been harvested at fifty years at the latest. They were passing seventy five and the earth couldn’t hold them with with their height and the high winds. we did have all the trees checked and saved some oak, walnut, mountain ash, beech and sycamore. The copse has now been replanted by the farmer with willow trees, if all goes well, they will farm them in twenty years. Hopefully, this time they won’t forget about them.