It was a mild day with sunny spells, and for once there was no named storm battering us, so Cwtch and I went a little farther afield, for a walk at Sheep Wood, which lies just to one side of a ridge of land between the suburbs of Westbury-on-Trym and Henbury. It's one of those not much frequented pockets of land where nature is in charge, something that's to be valued in a city. What makes this one really special, though, is that it contains - or is overlooked by - the original frontage of the Lord Mayor's Chapel, which dates from 1230 and was removed from its original site in the 1820s, when the level of Park Street was raised to improve its gradient. It was rebuilt four and a half miles to the north by (possibly) Henry Brooke of Henbury Hill House to act as a picturesque Victorian folly on the boundary of his garden abutting Sheep Wood.
I'd been itching to see it since I visited the Lord Mayor's Chapel just before Christmas. I thought I might have to hunt for it, but it was the first thing I saw as I entered the wood at its mid-point.
Cwtch, on the other hand, was far more excited by the wood itself - all those new sniffs to sniff - and was motoring around, exploring every inch, so I decided to save closer inspection of the frontage for later.
my first snowdrop of the year
two magnificent beeches
I felt I ought to have known of the wood's existence before my poet friend David Johnson told me about it a year or so ago, since it adjoins what used to be Wesley College (and before that, Didsbury College). Being Bristolian and raised Methodist, it was ... well, maybe calling it a familiar place in my childhood is a bit of a stretch, but I do remember going to see a production of 'The Crucible' there when I was about 12, and also having a picnic in the grounds when my own children were small. But walking Sheep Wood felt very much like a first footing.
You can just glimpse the former college (now a nursing home) in the background of the photo above.
If Cwtch was expecting sheep, she was disappointed, though we did pass a herd of yews at its south-west end.
Being higher than its surroundings, on one side at least, there were some pale but interesting views of the suburbs to the west. Above, in wintry sun, the dreaming spires of Brookridge House, Henbury, which you can also see from the farmland where we more often walk, a mile and a half to the north-east.
A huge burr at the foot of an oak. All the trees in the wood are under a preservation order.
'Aren't I more interesting than some old tree?'
CLOCKWISE from top left: stump puffball; velvet top(?) and black braacket fungus; oak bracket fungus (the oak is completely dead; the misleading leaves are from a nearby tree); King Alfred's Cakes; slime mould; hoof fungi
We then explored the north-eastern end of the wood. As we approached the Chapel facade on our return, the path ascended to its foot, so you could get a much closer look.
There's also a sort-of viewing platform built lower down on the side of the hill, which is accessed by a dangerous-looking flight of steps. I've been nervous of any sort of step or stair since I broke my leg stepping off my doorstep back in 2015 - once your body has let you down so comprehensively, it's difficult ever to trust it again - but they still looked a better option than slithering down the slope, because obviously I couldn't pass up the chance of another, slightly different view of an eight-hundred-year-old wall.
And there it was. A bit magical, really. Cwtch says we'll come back again to see how it looks in different seasons, and I think she's right.
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