Firestone Copse

In the olden days we used to visit the Queen's Bower, a piece of National Trust woodland behind Sandown, known to us for the wonderful stand of large beech trees in the middle of it and known to the Ordnance Survey as Borthwood Copse. And with the online version of their map seeming to lose the National Trust bit.

Of late, we have taken to visiting Firestone Copse instead, a mixed wood operated by the Forestry Commission and doubling as a recreational site, complete with car park and made up paths.

Visited this year on a rest day after a couple of days of strenuous beaching. Started the day by failing to make it to the Ashey Down sea mark, its field turning out to contain cows, which I find rather off-putting the same side of the fence. So off to Firestone Copse, a two part visit with one walk before lunch, Havenstreet for lunch and a second walk after lunch.

Havenstreet being a straggly but versatile village. Heritage railway to the southwest, heritage sun camp (deep in the woods, see reference 2) to the southeast. A village pub, friendly but primarily a pub-grub operation. A village hotel, a large red brick affair, having done time both as an asylum for both sufferers from TB and as an asylum for sufferers from mental illness. More time as a holiday home for congregational ministers. Just to the north of the village there is an unusual memorial, set on top of an open hill above a dairy farm and originally built, I think, to memorialise a son lost in the first war, but now a memorial to the Willis Fleming family more generally, a grand family which now has a grand web site (reference 1), rather than a grand bricks-and-mortar estate. We picnic'd outside the memorial: fine views over the island but rather hot out in the open.

Back to Firestone Copse where we were pleased to find some large and old pine trees, very tall and straight. No idea what they were, but they were impressive. And a fair amount of carex pendula.

Onto Quarr Abbey which was rather too full of tourists (like ourselves, to be fair) for comfort.

And so home to the Kynge's Well for our evening meal, the place which used to be called the Dark Horse and have a more complicated menu, a menu enlivened by its being chalked up on a board each evening by a pretty young barmaid. A very elaborate chalking it was too. Our waitress on this occasion was more homely than pretty or young, but very pleasant for all that and we had a serviceable if not memorable meal. We forgot to check whether the well for which the pub had been renamed was still present in the other room. See reference 3 for one of our previous visits.

PS: the loss of the National Trust designation turns out to be a matter of scale. At the largest scale the online maps from Ordnance Survey drop the National Trust - and other holiday maker stuff. An example of what googlemaps do not do, with my understanding being that there is a single map underlying what you see in googlemaps, irrespective of the scale of display. Ordnance Survey do something rather more complicated - and more expensive. Only viable in the context of a small island.

Reference 1: http://www.willisfleming.org.uk/.

Reference 2: http://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=havenstreet and http://www.valeriansunclub.com/.

Reference 3: http://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=ambrosia+dark+horse.

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