Ashdown Forest Research Articles

Conservation and ‘the poor unfortunate foresters’: the regulation of the Ashdown Forest, Sussex 1870–1890

Abstract The twenty years surrounding the regulation of Ashdown Forest in 1885 reveal locally complex tensions and interactions. Designed to ensure the environmental protection of the Forest and to end internal dissent among those connected to it, regulation failed. Instead, protracted in-place conflict continued, as working families rejected new legislation which threatened their livelihoods. So the new body of conservators was faced with balancing such protection with the customary uses by commoners, with the working practices of ‘foresters’, with resurgent calls for small-scale farming, and with the ever-increasing residential numbers by the 1880s, many seeking ‘nature’ and ‘the primitive’, but also social tone. And increasingly, from beyond the locality, came the calls for environmental protection, especially from the newly formed Commons Preservation Society, urged on by newspaper articles recommending the fresh air and ‘natural’ beauty of Ashdown to townsfolk as a rural idyll or for moral improvement.

A chemical and ecological assessment into elemental loading from ford crossings in Ashdown Forest, Sussex, United Kingdom

Numerous studies have identified the issue of road surface runoff as a source of contamination into waterways but the impact of vehicular wash-off is less well understood. A ford crossing provides a pathway for vehicle-derived contaminants emanating from both road surface runoff and vehicular wash-off into a river system. Twyford Lane Ford (Ford 1) and Birchgrove Lane Ford (Ford 2), located ca. 600 m apart on a tributary of the River Ouse in Sussex (UK), were the focus of this study. A combination of biomonitoring (assessment of benthic macroinvertebrates) and chemical assessments of water and sediments has been undertaken to determine any detrimental impacts, such as a lack in biodiversity, resulting from the ford crossings. Sediment concentrations of chromium (Cr3+), lead (Pb) and zinc (Zn) were generally elevated at Ford 1, attenuating at sampling points between the fords to then peak at Ford 2. However, sediment particle size was seen to have an influence on elemental concentrations. In general, an increase in elemental concentrations was associated with a higher percentage of fine-grained sediments (≤63 μm). Elevated concentrations of Zn and magnesium (Mg) were identified within water samples taken during a precipitation event following a prolonged dry period. The biomonitoring results found reduced BMWP (Biological Monitoring Working Party) scores at positions close to the ford crossings, and where the stream was in proximity to the roadside. Sensitive Ephemeroptera were largely absent at sampling points closest to the fords, which is likely to be associated with elevated Zn. The results suggest that careful consideration should be applied when selecting crossing points over sensitive waters.

Long‐term amelioration of acidity accelerates decomposition in headwater streams

The secondary production of culturally acidified streams is low, with a few species of generalist detritivores dominating invertebrate assemblages, while decomposition processes are impaired. In a series of lowland headwater streams in southern England, we measured the rate of cellulolytic decomposition and compared it with values measured three decades ago, when anthropogenic acidification was at its peak. We hypothesized that, if acidity has indeed ameliorated, the rate of decomposition will have accelerated, thus potentially supporting greater secondary production and the longer food chains that have been observed in some well-studied recovering freshwater systems. We used cellulose Shirley test cloth as a standardized bioassay to measure the rate of cellulolytic decomposition, via loss in tensile strength, for 31 streams in the Ashdown Forest over 7 days in summer 2011 and 49 days in winter 2012. We compared this with data from an otherwise identical study conducted in 1978 and 1979. In a secondary study, we determined whether decomposition followed a linear or logarithmic decay and, as Shirley cloth is no longer available, we tested an alternative in the form of readily available calico. Overall mean pH had increased markedly over the 32 years between the studies (from 6.0 to 6.7). In both the previous and contemporary studies, the relationship between decomposition and pH was strongest in winter, when pH reaches a seasonal minimum. As in the late 1970s, there was no relationship in 2011/2012 between pH and decay rate in summer. As postulated, decomposition in winter was significantly faster in 2011/2012 than in 1978/1979, with an average increase in decay rate of 18.1%. Recovery from acidification, due to decreased acidifying emissions and deposition, has led to an increase in the rate of cellulolytic decomposition. This response in a critical ecosystem process offers a potential explanation of one aspect of the limited biological recovery that has been observed so far, an increase in larger bodied predators including fish, which in turn leads to an increase in the length of food chains.

Environmental politics, custom and personal testimony: memory and lifespace on the late Victorian Ashdown Forest, Sussex

The late Victorian period witnessed a growing concern for, on the one hand, environmental protection, and on the other, the ‘human fauna’, with their vanishing folk heritage, living on the margins of a capitalist rural economy. In connection with the Ashdown Forest legal dispute (1876–1882) over the common rights in this ancient Forest area in the Weald of Sussex, the young solicitor William Augustus Raper interviewed over 100 elderly residents to collect evidence of 60 years’ gathering of litter (bracken, heather, etc.). Their depositions reveal much about the ways in which local environmental politics were a constituent part of custom and economy on the Forest, and how such contested rights underpinned the more elite conservation movement at this time. Although gathered for a specific legal case, the evidence reveals much about the interrelations between late-Victorian peasant communities and their environments, but also much about the individuals, and their social, economic and spatial relations. The material is assessed for its relationship to similar 19th- and 20th-century sources and for its use within historical geography, and there is also a discussion of the potential and problems associated with the use of transcribed oral evidence and auto/biographical material more generally.

King's Standing Transmitter Station, Crowborough

This article examines the archaeology of a Second World War transmitter station at Crowborough on the Ashdown Forest in East Sussex in the parish of Maresfield (map reference TQ 4730 2913). As a study of the archaeology of broadcasting and communication, it examines a site-type little considered by industrial archaeologists. The buildings were visited and surveyed during 1999 and 2000. They remain virtually unoccupied and it is anticipated that they may not survive for much longer. It was felt that this interesting wartime and post-war endeavour should be properly recorded.

Herbivory in an acid stream

SUMMARY 1. Spatial and temporal variation in the distribution and feeding of non-predatory macroinvertebrates was investigated in a first-order, acid stream in the Ashdown Forest, southern England. 2. Stonefly (Nemouridae) and chironomid (Orthocladiinae) larvae were abundant on the upper surfaces of mineral substrata of three sizes (small stones, large stones, bedrock). The density of larvae in each taxonomic group did not vary among substrata of different sizes, although strong seasonal variation existed. 3. Nemourids and chironomids (H. marcidus) collected from the upper surfaces of substrata exhibited generalist feeding habits, consuming algae (diatoms, coccoid and filamentous green algae), detritus (biofilm matrix material and fine particulate organic matter (FPOM)) and inorganic debris. 4. There was spatial variation in the gut contents of nemourids. The proportion of algae in the guts of larvae often increased with the size of the substratum from which they were collected. Strong temporal variation in the composition of the diet also existed. Nemourids ingested a large quantity of attached algae and biofilm matrix from the biofilm in spring and winter, but consumed loose FPOM and associated microflora in summer and autumn. 5. We conclude that, in this acid stream, the trophic linkage between algae and grazers is maintained by ‘detritivorous’ stonefly and chironomid species. The relationship between the feeding habits of these larvae and other life-history attributes, such as mouthpart morphology and mobility, is discussed.

Temporal and spatial variation in the epilithic biofilm of an acid stream

Summary1. The extent of spatial and temporal variation, and the taxonomic and biochemical composition of epilithic biofilm were determined in a first‐order, acidic stream in the Ashdown Forest, southern England.2. The biofilm had an autotrophic component consisting of acidobiontic diatoms, small coccoid green algae, zygnematacean filamentous green algae, and a heterotrophic component of bacteria. Fungi were absent.3. Diatoms were the dominant algal group in spring. These were succeeded by coccoid green algae in summer. Synchronous variation existed between algae and bacteria, suggesting a strong link between the two groups.4. Quantitative community descriptors (algal and bacterial densities, chlorophyll, ash‐free dry matter) and biochemical descriptors (protein, lipid and carbohydrate content) of biofilm presented a consistent temporal pattern in which biofilm biomass peaked in spring and early summer and decreased subsequently.5. Stepwise multiple regression revealed that temporal variation in the quantity of biofilm coating substrata was primarily associated with photosynthetically active radiation. The quantity of biofilm coating the upper surfaces of substrata increased with substratum particle size (small stones, large stones and bedrock). Smothering of algae by fine particulate organic matter, proximal shading by bed sediments, and physical disturbance are proposed as mechanisms that brought about the pattern.

Nutrients, algae and grazers in some British streams of contrasting pH

SUMMARY1. The relationship between algal biomass accumulation, invertebrate colonization, and stream‐water pH was investigated in seven streams in three regions of England and Wales. Possible nutrient limitation of algal production at all sites was examined with diffusion substrata.2. Periphyton assemblages on experimental substrata after 30 days were dominated by diatoms, notably Eunotia spp., at all sites. Algal pigment concentration (chlorophyll a and phaeopigments) was not correlated with stream‐water pH, and mean concentrations on control (unenriched) substrata ranged from 0.08 to 1.94 μg cm−2.3. The growth response of periphyton to nutrient additions was site specific. Algal production was stimulated by nutrient additions at sites in the English Lake District and Llyn Brianne (south‐west Wales), but not in the Ashdown Forest (southern England).4. Larval Chironomidae were the main invertebrates retrieved from substrata at all sites. Within all three regions, larval abundance was positively related to algal pigment concentration (biomass). Abundance of the stonefly Nemurella pictetii was also positively correlated with algal biomass at the one site where it occurred.5. Our results indicate that epilithic algal production in small, oligotrophic streams is unlikely to be determined primarily by pH. Neither do they support the view that an absence of grazers from acid streams is necessarily due to an inadequate food supply.

Micro‐arthropod seasonally in streams of varying pH

SUMMARY. 1. Micro‐arthropods were sampled seasonally (January, May, August and October) during 1986 from ten, stony riffle sites on streams in the Ashdown Forest of southern England, using both standard benthic and interstitial samplers.2. Total densities peaked at most sites in summer. Species richness reached a maximum at acid sites in summer but at cireumneutral sites in autumn, when Hydrachnellae and Cladocera were particularly species rich.3. Individual species showed no obvious differences in seasonally between sites; the majority peaking in summer or autumn, regardless of pH. However, cyclopoid copepods were particularly numerous at acid sites in summer, a pattern not observed at circumneutral sites.4. Multivariate ordination and classification of data sets from the separate seasons, and all four seasons combined, showed that mean site pH, conductivity, and aluminium and calcium concentrations were the most important variables explaining between‐site variation in species composition. This clear distinction between the community structure at acidic and circumneutral sites was evident in all seasons except winter. Species composition was also more predictable throughout the year at low‐pH sites.5. A number of species were taken consistently in interstitial samples and the cyclopoids Diacydops languidus and D. languidoides were restricted to the hyporheos at circumneutral sites. The similar faunal composition of the hyporheos and the epibenthos indicated that the separation of these communities was not well defined in Ashdown Forest streams.

The distribution of micro‐arthropods in some southern English streams: the influence of physicochemistry

SUMMARY. 1. Micro‐arthropods were surveyed during October 1986 at thirty stony, stream riffle sites in the Ashdown Forest, southern England.2. The importance of a number of physicochemical variables in determining both the distribution of micro‐arthropod taxa and community structure was assessed.3. Acidic sites had an impoverished fauna. Total micro‐arthropod species richness and densities were highest under circumneutral conditions. and the same patterns were shown by the Hydrachnellae, Harpucticoida and Cladocera. A number of species seemed indifferent to acidic conditions and were widespread and, as a group, the cyclopoid copepods showed no relationship with pH.4. Multiple regression showed that other environmental variables, in particular annual mean temperature and maximum discharge, were also important in explaining the between‐site distribution of separate micro‐arthropod groups and individual species.5. Other multivariate techniques (ordination, classification and multiple discriminant analysis) showed that impoundment linkage, source distance and conductivity, along with pH, were the most important variables in explaining patterns of species composition between sites.

Stone Cottage: Pound, Yeats, and modernism

Between 1913 and 1916 Ezra Pound and W.B.Yeats spent three winters living together in a small cottage at the edge of Ashdown Forest in Sussex. The chronicle of these years is the story of how the interaction between Pound and Yeats was a seminal part of the rise of Anglo-American literary modernism. Together, they established many of the practices and, more importantly, the aristocratic tone that would characterize modernist literature for many years to come. Working from a large base of unpublished material, this study will force us to alter some of the most established aspects of the mythology of literary modernism: in particular, Yeats is shown to have been the prime mover in the effort to it new; in more general terms, the book reveals how the rise of literary modernism became inextricably bound with contemporaneous developments in twentieth century politics. Unpublished letters and poems , for example, make explicit for the first time the two poets' direct reaction to the first World War. Along with such events, the state of literary modernism as a whole is considered, along with authors such as Eliot, Joyce, Blunt, Lowell, Moore and Stevens. Readership: those interested in the history of twentieth-century literature

Structure and grazing of stone surface organic layers in some acid streams of southern England

SUMMARY. Stone surface organic layers were investigated at five sites on small, acid streams in the Ashdown Forest, southern England. Sites differed in stream water pH (means 4.3–6.6) and some other physicochemical features. Organic layers at the stream bed surface differed between sites in structure and in the amount of organic carbon present. Algae were abundant at the sites with higher conductivity and pH, iron bacteria (mainly Leptothrix sp.) predominated in the iron‐rich Broadstone stream, whereas the surface layer at the most acid site was predominantly a rather structure less organic film with few living organisms. Amounts of organic carbon on stones buried within the stream bed for 3 months were almost identical at all sites. When viewed with the scanning electron microscope (SEM), organic layers on buried stones were rather structure less with some amorphous, floceulent material. The paucity of microflora suggests that these layers may have been formed primarily by abiotic mechanisms. X‐ray microanalysis of organic layers indicated that complexes of organic matter with the metals iron, aluminium and manganese were present. Laboratory experiments with seven species of invertebrates showed that all were able to remove and at least partially ingest organic layers and underlying sandstone. The weight of material removed was highest on microbially impoverished layers from the most acid site, and was substantially lower where algae were abundant.6. The role of stone surface organic layers in stream systems is discussed. They may be important sites of dissolved organic matter (DOM) uptake and transfer to the benthos. A major impact of acidity on running water could be through its effect on the structure and function of organic layers.

Ashdown Forest

Ashdown Forest

Community structure in some southern English streams: the influence of physicochemical factors

SUMMARY. 1. Invertebrates and fish were surveyed during October 1976 in thirty‐four stony riffle stream sites in Ashdown Forest, Sussex.2. A variety of physicochemical factors were also measured in an attempt to assess the importance of each in determining the distribution of species and the structure of communities.3. Three analytical techniques—stepwise multiple regression analysis, ordination and community classification—revealed that the structure of these communities was strongly related to variation in stream pH. Acid sites had low numbers of individuals, low species richness and low equitabilities. Summer temperature and stream discharge also appeared to play significant roles. The pattern of catchment land use was shown to have an important bearing on stream pH.4. In the most acid sites only collectors, shredders and predators occurred. In more basic sites the number of species in collector and predator categories increased and these were joined by grazer/scrapers and filter feeders.5. A theoretical basis for explaining stream community structure is discussed.

An Experimental Investigation into the Behaviour of the Heather Weevil (Strophosomus sus) on Heathland in the Ashdown Forest, Sussex

(1971). An Experimental Investigation into the Behaviour of the Heather Weevil (Strophosomus sus) on Heathland in the Ashdown Forest, Sussex. Journal of Biological Education: Vol. 5, No. 1, pp. 7-14.

List of Myxomycetes collected from Ashdown Forest 1965 – 69

List of Myxomycetes collected from Ashdown Forest 1965 – 69

An Address delivered November 15, 1894, on the occasion of the Gibbon Centenary Commemoration

Mr. Frederic Harrison, V.P.R.Hist. S., said:It is now just one hundred years ago that, in a remote village church under Ashdown Forest in Sussex, and in the most simple manner, were laid to rest, by the loving care of his lifelongfriend, the mortal remains of the most famous writer of history in the English language. Edward Gibbon, the immortal author of ‘The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire’, died in London in January 1794, at the age of 56, after an illness of a few days, almost in the fulnessof his intellectual power, at the zenith of his fame, with the great work of his life achieved, in perfect peace of mind, and surrounded by the esteem and affection of all who knew him. Hisdear friend, we may almost say his brother by adoption, Lord Sheffield, whose grandson to-day presides over this gathering, placed the body in the Sheffield mausoleum in Fletching Church, where it still reposes; and he collected in the house of Sheffield Place portraits, miniatures, personal relics, manuscripts, diaries, and letters of the historian; and there, until now, they have been religiously preserved as heirlooms in the Sheffield family. Nor have the literary remains ever been examined since the publication of Lord Sheffield's five volumes of ‘Miscellaneous Works’ in 1814, except partially by Dean Milman more than fifty years ago.