Deal Of The Day...

Trouble brewing: process tanks and pallets of wine bottles at Brookers Farm, September 2021... 

As Cuxton and Luddesdown residents recently found out, a big chunk of their ancient and historic parishes have now been unilaterally renamed the “Silverhand Estate”. It’s a name that means nothing locally, one that appears to have been plucked out of the air by some computer game-fixated marketing wonk working for our local mega-vineyard and wannabe tourist-trap operator, MDCV/Vineyard Farms.

It seems that Vineyard Farms/MDCV Ltd. are now trying to position the Silverhand Estate brand in the market place, via a deal with Marks and Spencer that sees the launch of M&S’s own “Bramble Hill”  brand of sparkling wine.

"Bramble Hill" sadly just seems to be another made-up marketing name (unless it's a passing nod to Bramble HALL Farm in Oakenden Road). Other local wineries, such as Meopham Valley, seem proud to advertise their links with the local community, as can be seen in their branding. But then, of course, MDCV/VF seem to be much less keen on the concept of community involvement...

As the May 23^rd edition of the Daily Express tells us (as part of the blurb for its “Deal of the Day”):

“Most English wines are made via the traditional method where their bubbles are produced during a second fermentation in the bottle it’s sold in, similar to champagne and Cava.

However, Bramble Hill has its bubbles made in a pressurised tank and then bottled so that it’s extra dry. (It’s called the “Charmat Method ”…)

It’s made in the Kent countryside by Silverhand Estate and has English-grown Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier grapes (the same grapes used in Champagne) and Bacchus grapes.

Sue Daniels, winemaker for M&S said: “We know families across the country will be looking for the perfect way to raise a toast to the Queen on her Platinum Jubilee, and what better way than with a great-value fizz with all the delicious floral aromas of the British countryside. And at a fraction of the price of other English sparkling wines, it really is Britain’s answer to Prosecco!”…”

So basically, it’s inauthentic fizz labelled with an inauthentic brand name made on an equally inauthentically-named estate. (Update: Even the Sun - whose wine buff's picture weirdly seems to show her as having a head a quarter the size of her body in an epic PhotoShop fail...) rates it as pretty average stuff...)

Still, it may be inauthentic fizz: but at least it’s M&S inauthentic fizz…

The “Bramble Hill” name conjures up a vision of a bucolic, old-fashioned family-run operation, but the old farm sheds down at Court and Brookers Farm in Luddesdown are now buzzing with industrial-scale  activity.  They have sprouted an impressive array of steel tanks and pipework, in addition to the original fermentation vessels (ones that Vineyard Farms somehow missed getting planning permission for...).

Court and Brookers Farm, Luddesdown, May 2022...

It seems unlikely that the grapes or grape juice for the manufacture of this mass-market brew come from Vineyard Farms’ Ironfist (sorry, Silverhand) estate. From what I've seen, they are still at least a year or so away from any significant harvest and indeed, have only just started training some of their vines onto their supports.

Given that the Goldfinger (sorry, Silverhand) estate is currently a grape-free zone, the banks of food-grade nitrogen and carbon dioxide cylinders at Brookers farmyard suggest that production of “Bramble Hill” in the “Kent Countryside” at Luddesdown is limited to simply bringing grape juice on to site, fermenting it, gassing it up and then bottling it. 

Blowing bubbles: food grade (purple) nitrogen bottles and carbon dioxide bottles (black). 

This process could be done anywhere, (and probably done much better elsewhere) given the poor access into Luddesdown via the little country lane that is Luddesdown Road.

This manufacturing process also seems to be at odds with the argument Vineyard Farms puts forward in its Shrimplin-authored planning statement in an attempt to justify that their proposed massive underground wine factory simply HAS to be constructed on green belt AONB land, because (so they claim) transportation of grapes off-site (even for a few miles) would adversely affect the quality of the product.

Yet they seem to have no problem with buying in stored grape juice from Lord knows where to make their Bramble Hill fizz.

So for your projected four million bottles a year of own-brand output, why not press your grapes on site and then ship the juice offsite to a local industrial estate? You’ve shown you can make wine like that, because you’re doing it now it (unless you’re admitting that Bramble Hill is just poor quality plonk, of course). From a logistics and infrastructure perspective, it’s a no-brainer. 

But of course, we all know that it’s the tourist trade Vineyard Farms really wants, with the glamour and cachet of a £30m Lord Foster design hoping to attract 350,000 yuppie DFL punters every year to what will become the UK’s biggest vineyard - twice the size of the UK's largest working winery, Denbies in Surrey.

The manufacturing side is secondary to all of that.

The Vineyard Farms’ boast about its plan to “kick-start a wine revolution” in the British wine market appears to boil down to simply flooding said market with mass-produced fizzy plonk like “Bramble Hill.” It’s a boast that now looks trivial, other-worldly and out of touch with the day-to-day economics of its original target customers.

The world has suddenly and drastically changed, but Vineyard Farms (or whatever they want to call themselves) are still living in the happy days of a pre-Covid/Brexit/Ukraine invasion past, a past in which the UK still had a domestic economy and where bottles of fizzy plonk weren’t an unnecessary and pointless luxury.

In a country where food shortages are now a real threat, it seems crazy to put 1200 acres of good quality agricultural land under vines, let alone under concrete or 200,000 cubic meters of chalk spoil to make a rich person's tourist trap out of a precious green belt AONB.

But when did “crazy” ever stop the billionaire oligarchs who actually run this country from doing exactly as they please, no matter what the consequences for the rest of us…?

Woodman, Spare That Tree...?

Summer is here and once again the woods are humming with the sound of chainsaws, as Vineyard Farms/MDCV/Silverhand Estate or whatever they call themselves these days look to continue their programme of “coppicing” in Stonyfield Wood.

Woodland management contractor Tilhill undertook the last load of clearance work in the area a couple of years back, but I am not sure who is doing the work this time around: I have been through there a couple of times and have yet to see any signage to mark out the working area, nor to warn any passing member of the public of the ongoing work.

Stonyfield Wood is part of the Halling to Trottiscliffe Escarpment SSSI and in theory, any “woodland management” activity constitutes an ORNEC (“Operation Requiring Natural England Consent”).

Like any government-funded organisation these days, however, Natural England have been cut to the bone and then way beyond, meaning they are pretty much impotent when it comes to policing the SSSIs under their watch.

The Forestry Commission were able to tell me that a logging licence covering coppicing activity in the area was in place, but NE’s response as to whether they could find any record of granting their supposedly necessary consent was “not at the moment”. I’m not sure it matters in practice. The FC seems OK with it and it’s difficult to know just what value NE’s “consent” would add anyway: the Stonyfield Wood area in question is not “ancient” woodland and had been worked for many years until quite recently.

On balance I personally (for the little that’s worth) think it’s a good thing that these old coppices are being tidied up a bit. A large part of the woodland now under Vineyard Farm’s ownership is old coppice, much of it formerly grown for chestnut hop poles and “stake and wire” fencing. Once common, such things went out of fashion in the 1970s and the coppices, once regularly “farmed”, have been pretty much neglected since then. 

This can be seen in the “non-coppice” trees, the oak, ash and beech, which get left standing when their companion chestnuts get cut down. Allowing the coppices to become overgrown has forced some of the other trees to grow into rather twisted, top-heavy-looking things that appear rather vulnerable to future storms.

The 40 year gap had also allowed some interesting wildlife to become established, all of which gets driven away when the chain-saws move back in. We lost the White Admirals from this area when the first load of coppicing took place in 2020, and the bats in Red Wood also got scared off by coppicing, although numbers of the latter seem to returning to the evening skies over Upper Bush once more. The idea is that coppicing is done over small areas of woodland on a regular basis, allowing the wildlife to transfer to adjacent undisturbed areas, but (through no-one’s fault) this practice has locally gone out of the window.

Fortunately, a small stand of Butterfly and White Helleborine orchids I found last year just down the slope on Bavins bank have remained undisturbed, although it look like the spring storms have brought a bush down on top of them.  Fortunately, they have still flowered.

Butterfly orchids...

Butterfly Orchid

White Helleborine...

Although I think it is good that the coppices are now being cleared, quite what the reason is for felling these trees right now for seems unclear. I thought that perhaps the wood might be used to provide the stakes required for the stringing-up of the ever-burgeoning vine plantings, but I am told that the timber for that purpose is imported from Scandinavia.

Instead, it certainly looks as if at least some of the timber is being prepped up for “post and rail” fencing, so in some ways it seems that the coppicing tradition is being constructively revived.

One would like to think that the new land owners are going to continue to manage their woodlands sympathetically, rather than just go for a one-off cash-in on the timber value.

Stormy Skies Over Ranscombe...

 Colourful late evening clouds...

Lady Orchids, Mill Hill...

 

Wild Garlic (Ramsons), Mays Wood...

Sanicle...

Not all of the blizzard of white flowers in Mays Wood is down to the wild garlic. More than a casual glance will show that there is a large patch of woodruff lying on the left of the main path as you head westwards...

Woodruff, close-up...

Woodruff...

 

Goodyear Airship...

 Over Halling this afternoon...

The Old Oak at Warren Road...

The old Oak on Warren Road...

The ruined oak at the side of Warren Road is a familiar sight. The young tree growing from its remains isn't a happy accident of nature, it seems: it appears that at least half-a-dozen people claim that their dad or grandad planted it. One family even screwed a plastic plaque to the poor tree proclaiming their ownership of that claim, but that was fortunately soon taken down.

"Beating the Bounds"(?), c.1959...

The old tree is featured in the rather wonderful photo above, which shows a victim of the curious custom of "beating the bounds" beating "beaten" against what appears to be a marker stone of some description.  Even back then, it can be seen that the tree was in a rather ruinous condition.

The marker stone is no longer there but I think it would not have been a Cuxton parish boundary stone as it is too far west.  The "official perambulations" of Cuxton were held in 1957 and 1966, so perhaps this event is a boundary beating exercise by a Cobham or Luddesdown team. Certainly the old oak is right on the Cobham/Luddesdown parish boundary.

Whatever those guys were up to, it looks like they were having fun, anyway...

Arrogantia divitum non diligitur...

Recently spotting a Wall butterfly at the bottom of Barrow Hill was a bittersweet experience. My joy at seeing that these now-scarce butterflies are moving back into Upper Bush was tempered by the knowledge that Vineyard farms will soon be destroying the area for their vanity winery.

Walking down the North Downs Way through Upper Bush after my “parish boundary stone hunt”, I came to the crossing at Bush Road. Here, my mood darkened further when I saw that Vineyard Farms have now been putting up markers of their own...

Vineyard Farms' new boundary marker - a "boast post"...

A wooden post has been put in place, asserting that the area is now apparently part of something called the “Silverhand Estate”. This seems to be a piece of whimsy on behalf of our new baronial masters: the name “Silverhand” appears on no local map, past or present and has (as far as I know) no actual meaning or historic connection with the area, or indeed, with anything else at all.

Between them, the fields, woodlands and roads around Cuxton and Luddesdown have many interesting and unusual names, names that are steeped in local history. Wrangling Lane, Cutter Ridge, Bushy Wood, Hatch Hill, Wrenches Shaw, Brazenden Wood, Backenden Hill: all of these names mean something locally and would have made perfectly appropriate titles for Vineyard Farms’ new estate.

A company that cared a bit more about the local community might have even asked its neighbours what they thought their estate could be called, but then “community engagement” isn’t exactly the Vineyard Farms way, beyond the bare minimum needed to tick that box for the planning application. (Perhaps they were scared they might have gotten too many "Winey Mc.Wineface" answers...)

So sadly it appears that Vineyard Farms have chosen to ignore any local connotations when naming their new baronial fiefdom, preferring instead to celebrate their ownership of 1200 acres of historic farmland across Cuxton and Luddesdown by naming it after a computer game character.

It just seems like the Lord of the Manor crowing: "All of this is ours now, not yours..."

Their new propaganda post boasts about the hedgerows that are being planted on their new estate, as part of an initiative by a lottery-funded group called Old Chalk New Downs. Indeed, Vineyard Farms' "Biodiversity Net Gain Assessment" (on the Council Planning Portal) claims a net "Habitat Unit" (furniture?) gain of 14.34% and a "hedgerow unit" gain of 864.47%. Utterly meaningless twaddle, of course, as if "biodiversity" can be calculated to two decimal places. Shoving a few twigs in the ground at the start of a drought hardly compensates for the desertification of 1200 acres of arable farmland or the planned levelling of Barrow Hill to build a totally unnecessary and unwanted tacky tourist trap on a green belt AONB. 

They also boast about the "biodegradable cardboard" used to protect their new twigs. No mention at all of the hundreds of thousands of non-biodegradable plastic net sheathes that protect their precious vines (1.5 million of them, so I gather) and which, from a distance, now give the valleys their unpleasant chemical green tint.  

Given that each sheath weighs 45g, 1.5 million of them equates to a staggering 67.5 tonnes of plastic. Some of this already seems to be strewn across the public footpaths as you make your way around the estate, although one would hope that there would be arrangements made to collect and recycle the horrid things once they have served their purpose.

And can it really be that a company owned by a billionaire tax exile (and one with its tax arrangements doubtless being as "tax efficient" as those of its owner) would actually be exploiting UK tax-payer's money and lottery funding to get their new "hedgerows" planted?  Certainly such hedgerow work would be eligible for grants from the Farming In Protected Landscapes and the Old Chalk New Downs projects that VF are bragging about their involvement with. 

Personally I think it is disgraceful that public money is apparently being used to fund the planting of hedgerows on a private estate. I'm not sure that in these harsh times, those struggling to pay their bills would really want to hear that the taxes they pay may be subsidizing trendy "green-washing" by companies owned by billionaires, especially billionaires that live abroad for tax purposes. Perhaps it will give them such a warm feeling, they won't need to heat their houses with expensive gas or electricity...

I wonder if DEFRA/OCND even know just what MDCV/Vineyard Farms are really up to?  Are they aware that Medway Council's planning committee have just rejected VF's winery plans because of their "inappropriate nature" for green belt AONB and the damage they would to "protected landscapes" and "old chalk"? 

Vineyard Farms even have the cheek to display the logo of the Kent Downs AONB unit on their new boasting post, a group that expressed a strong and detailed objection to VF's plans on Medway Council's planning portal.

Despite the extensive local opposition to their plans, I understand that Vineyard Farms are now definitely going ahead with an appeal against the decision (made by Medway’s democratically-elected councillors on the planning committee) to reject their vainglorious scheme.

It's an appeal I think they will probably win. Vineyard Farms know that the locals can’t match the array of highly-paid experts and barristers they will be hiring to argue that black is white in front of the planning inspector at the forthcoming public inquiry. Their owner’s millions will buy them what they want in the end. We all knew that would happen anyway, didn’t we?

The final gloat on the boast post: "Wine Conquered"...

So I’m kind of surprised Vineyard Farms didn’t put “Vinum Vincit” (rather than “Vinum Victa”) on their cheesy, nineteen-seventies-style faux armorial. Even a shed-load of cash can't buy you taste, it seems... 

Bluebells and boundary stones...

Ramsons (Wild Garlic) - Mays Wood...

I set out with the intention of tracking down the rest of the parish marker boundary stones that follow the old fence line at the bottom of Bush valley, this time on the western side.  I did get rather side-tracked by the wild flowers along the way...

Ramsons (Wild Garlic) - May Wood...

Bluebells - Wingate Wood...

Bluebells - Wingate Wood...

Bluebells - Wingate Wood...

Oaks and Hornbeams, Wingate Wood...

Turning right off of the North Downs way at Stony Field leads down to the bottom of Bush valley...

OS Map (1907 revision) showing southern Bush Valley parish boundary marker stones...

The 1907 map shows nine marker stones that run up the western slope from the gate at the bottom of Bush Valley, following the parish boundary up to the NS214 footpath in Bushy Wood.  The early 1869 map did not indicate any marker stones and I suspect they were put in at the turn of the century.  The map also shows that the land to the south of Bush valley was once open fields.  However, the 1936 OS map shows this had begun to revert to the woodlands we see today...  

Marker stone locations superimposed on aerial map of southern Bush Valley...

I could not find the marker stone by the farm gate (the one on the extreme right of the above map) and I suspect it got grubbed up when the gate was put in.  The first four up the hill to the west were fairly easily found just inside the fence line (and on the above map, I have circled the stones I actually managed to find), but as I worked my way up the hill it became more and more overgrown with brambles...  

Example of boundary marker stone...

Superficially these stones seem similar in design to the Hilton and Anderson quarry markers, two of which can be found further up the valley above White Pit.  They are smaller, however, and lack the full stop between the H and the A, which the White Pit stones have. Some people believe that the "HA" on these stones also stands for Hilton and Anderson, but personally I think it just stands for HAlling... 

Example of parish boundary marker stone...

I tried to head westwards up the slope from the last boundary stone, but the brambles forced me to take a more southerly route up to the NS 214.  That did allow me to find a rather large and spectacular group of Early Purple orchids amongst the Bushy Wood bluebells, however...

Early Purple orchids and bluebells, Bushy Wood...

Early Purple orchid and bluebells, Bushy Wood...

Bushy Wood parish boundary marker stone...

The map suggested the presence of a boundary stone right by the NS 214 path but I could not find it, although it may well still be hiding in the dense undergrowth.  However, I tracked back north off of the NS 214 and succeeded in finding one of the four stones that are supposedly in the Bushy wood area.  I am sure the others are still there and I will try and find them at some point...  

Woodruff, Bushy Wood...

Bush Valley, north from the edge of Bushy Wood...

Bush Valley - the Vineyard Farms makeover...

Coming out of Bushy Wood, I took the track that runs down the western side of Bush Valley towards Upper Bush.  The activities of Vineyard Farms in support of their precious vines have left the valley looking sterile and desolate, more like a chalk quarry than farmland.. 

Wall butterfly, Burrow Hill...

At the bottom of the valley, Borrow Hill has been left alone for the moment.  Indeed, a few skylarks had returned and I was also amazed to see of couple of Wall butterflies, one being kind enough to stay still long enough for me to take its picture above. I haven't seen one of these for many years.  Once common, the population of these little beauties has crashed disastrously in the past 30 years and they now tend to be found only on coastal grassland areas.  Unfortunately, Vineyard Farms plan to obliterate Borrow Hill to build their stupid, vainglorious winery, so it'll soon be goodbye to Wall butterflies and skylarks...

Star of Bethlehem, Upper Bush...