Tuesday 6 December 2022

Church Hill to Lower Bush...

 A short walk in the winter sunshine...

Baker's Field, looking towards the Medway Bridge...

Church Hill, looking south...

Church Hill, looking north towards Cuxton...

Mays Wood...

Mays Wood...

Dean Farm...

Barrow Hill, looking west...

The picture above was taken from the top of the fly-tipped flint pile that Vineyard Farms have seen fit to dump up there. It marks the spot where their £30m concrete cow-pat is almost inevitably going to be built. Although neglected and weed-strewn (like most of Vineyard Farms' land not lost to vines) the view is still spectacular, so enjoy it before it is taken away from us for ever...

Barrow Hill - dumped plastic vine protectors...

It seems to be a feature of privately owned land across Cuxton that the more zealously its ownership is policed, the less cherished it seems to be by its owners, who often just treat their property as a rubbish tip. It seems that some of the 60-odd tonnes of plastic net sheathing used to protect the fledgling vines has now served its purpose and has thus been collected and dumped in an ugly pile at the bottom of Barrow Hill, just like the soil and spoil that litter the "Silverhand Estate" as a result of other Vineyard Farms activities. One assumes that the plastic waste will eventually be taken away for disposal before too much of it blows away.  

Or perhaps they are just going to burn it all...

Brickhouse Cottages, Lower Bush...

Unsightly though the Vineyard Farms policy of letting the hundreds of acres of land not covered in vines "lie fallow" under their "care", it is (unintentionally, I suspect) a bonanza for wildlife. The weed-strewn vistas at Lower Bush were home to linnets (which I haven't seen for a while), goldfinches and a few shy Blackcaps when I walked by them this morning.

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