In the drawing: Dawn over a cleared meadow. Old stumps, a narrow brook, and a scatter of alder seedlings no higher than a knee. Six survey stakes stand in the grass.
The Chronicle of Alderwood
A field journal kept by four keepers upon one wood, from its first saplings in 1887 until tonight.
Chapter I, 1887. First Observation
9 April 1887
Walked the lower meadow at first light.Where the old wood was felled thereis nothing above my knee, save alderseedlings along the brook, some dozens.
I have set six stakes, so that whoever comes after may find the same ground.
Edmund Ashcombe, surveyor
| Stn. | Chain | Bearing |
|---|---|---|
| A | 0 ch. 00 lk. | origin |
| B | 4 ch. 20 lk. | N 64° E |
| C | 3 ch. 75 lk. | N 18° E |
| D | 5 ch. 05 lk. | S 81° E |
| E | 2 ch. 90 lk. | S 22° E |
| F | 4 ch. 40 lk. | S 70° W |
In the drawing: Morning. The alders are young trees now, birches have seeded on the dry ground, and a new fence runs along the east side. Small birds cross the clearing.
Chapter II, 1906. The Young Grove
2 May 1906
The alders are over my head now.Birch has come in on the dry side,and a blackbird nests at Station C.
Nineteen years, and I must part the bracken to find my own stakes.
Edmund Ashcombe, surveyor
Fence put up on the east side, to keep the sheep off the young trees.
In the drawing: Noon in high summer. Oaks rise among the alders and the crowns have met overhead. Shafts of light fall through gaps onto the shaded floor.
Chapter III, 1924. The Canopy Closes
11 June 1924
Father's stakes are lost in the bracken.By noon no sun reaches the ferns.The oaks he never wrote downare pushing up through the alders.
Margery Ashcombe, his daughter, schoolteacher
- No.
- ALD 1924.017
- Taxon
- Quercus robur L., pedunculate oak
- Locality
- Alderwood, Station C
crowns met overhead, 58 ft
In the drawing: A foggy March afternoon. Bare, grown branches stand in the mist. The survey stakes have rotted away and no one is writing anything down.
Chapter IV, 1947. Years of Silence
No entries were made from 1939 to 1946.
March 1947
Back at last. The path has gone,and my father's stakes with it.The wood did not wait for me,and I find I am glad of it.
Margery Ashcombe, his daughter, schoolteacher
In the drawing: An October evening turning violent. Wind bends the whole wood, rain drives across it, and the great alder at Station A snaps and falls across the fence.
Chapter V, 1968. The Great Storm
3 October 1968
Weather log, lower wood
Glass 1004 to 976 mb
- 5.05 pmGlass falling since noon. Air very still.
- 5.40 pmWind backing south-west and rising. The rooks have gone quiet.
- 6.10 pmThe great alder at Station A is down, eighty-one years after Edmund first measured it. I heard it go over the wind.
Tobias Wren, forester
In the drawing: Blue dusk in November. The broken alder stands as a hollow stump, its fallen trunk green with moss and fungus. A tawny owl sits in the hollow.
Chapter VI, 1989. Return of the Owls
14 November 1989
The alder's stump has gone hollow,the fallen trunk thick with fungus.Tonight, for the first time in mythirty-one years here, a pair of tawnyowls, calling to each other across it.
Tobias Wren, forester
What the storm brought down, the wood has made into a nursery.
In the drawing: A July night. The wood is fully grown. Glow-worms shine where the fence used to be, an owl crosses the moon, and six stars trace the shape of the 1887 survey.
Chapter VII, Present day. The Living Archive
July. Glow-worms along the line where the fence used to be.
Edmund's six stakes rotted into the ground long ago. Tonight their shape is in the sky, where nobody can lose it.
Since first light you have been reading the lifetime of one wood.
Four keepers filled this book. The next page is blank.