New bridge - Jack's Belt

It was pretty snowy at Thornham last weekend, but no one took any photos! However, by Monday morning the only thing left were the last traces of several snowmen. On Wednesday this week a new bridge was built crossing the river in Jack's Belt.



The earth was dug out and a new bridge replaced the old one.


It looks really good, do walk down that way and try it out.

Month by Month at Thornham

To help school groups who visit Thornham see what it is like here at various times of the year, we are taking photos each month at certain points on the Estate which are used by schools for our different courses. This video gives an idea of the sort of areas we are going to cover and were taken in mid November.

The photos will also be available on our web site www.thornham.org.uk

They should be particularly useful for schools who do habitats or food, farming and the environment.

Thornham's Ancient Oak Trees

Thornham is famous for its magnificent ancient pollarded oak trees. Their age is hotly debated, but some could be around 800 years old. As well as gracing our hedges, footpaths and byways they survive particularly in the the Park and in adjoining woods and fields that were at one time part of the Park. The first picture shows one of the biggest oaks growing by the surfaced footpath, near the Walks car park.

Pollarding is the practice of pruning trees at a high level so they sprout out of the reach of animals. The new branches were cut for fodder, firewood, fencing and so on. It is pollarding that has allowed oaks to survive to a great age. It is very many years since most of our oaks were pollarded and the branches are now the size of trees, but you can see evidence of the pollarding in the branched shape, and in the break in the pattern on the bark where it was cut.

Although Thornham Hall existed in Tudor times the Park was probably created in the 18th century. The fashion was to imitate a medieval royal deer park or royal forest, such as those at Windsor and Epping. These ancient features are rich in magnificent trees, which were seen as symbols of old and powerful families. So when fields were cleared in front of the Hall to open out our new park, the roads, ditches and hedges were swept away, but notable trees were carefully preserved.

Most of these trees had grown in hedgerows, hence their alignments and the traces of ditches and banks still visible between them.
However, around the Folly there is a group of oaks and this is considered to be rare evidence of wood pasture, or of an earlier park.

There is a helpful article you can read at www.britarch.ac.uk/ba/ba36/ba36feat.html, and an interesting book: 'Suffolk's parks and gardens' by Tom Williamson.

November at Thornham

We have to admit it has been a bit of a grey and drizzly week at Thornham, however the school from Bramfield enjoyed a sunny and happy day doing our team building course.

The winter is a good time for maintenance and the Thornham Owl Project have over 180 bird of prey boxes which they have to check over the winter. The project which works alongside us at Thornham Field Centre put up boxes they have made in the locality. They are for birds of prey.

Each box is numbered and monitored and when the chicks hatch they are weighed and measured (by licensed handlers) Check out more pictures on the video below: