Picture gallery

Pictures of the Furze and its inhabitants - animal, vegetable and mineral.


Thursday 9th March 2017 - Our FIRST film

Perry Knight has been monitoring wildlife in the Furze to try to find out what sort of animal is building an underground mansion. We're planning to show a short video here - a FIRST for the website provided that it (a) uploads and (b) works once posted - showing some normally hidden goings-on.  More soon.

Early February: Christopher Hoskin has taken some lovely pictures of fungi which are currently flourishing in the wood.

He writes: 

The Jelly Ear came out quite nicely, but the Scarlet Elfcup was a bit too small for the camera phone. (Plus I think the lens was a bit misted - I may wander up there with aproper camera at some point.) The last one is Turkeytail. (N.B. I'm not very good with identifying fungi, so all names should be taken with a pinch of salt. I like the name Scarlet Elfcup though.

Here Here!  And no need to worry about the picture quality, Chris. These are terrific.

Here are some of the human inhabitants, or at least visitors, to the Furze at the summer tea party in June 2016. You can read more about such jollifications - and work parties - on the Latest News page - click here to link.

Elves at work, preparing the feast

Plus a hobgoblin tending the charcoal

One of the centrepieces of the feast: a parmesan and pesto pastry tree with easy-to-use Tear 'n' Share branchesa

And its creator, Trustee Trish

Another component of the feast - the 10th birthday cake in the shape (very roughly) of the furze, with beanpoles ready piled for Bunker's Hill nursery

And its creator, Li'l Emly

Revellers watch entranced as the cake's accompanying mega-candle unfolds its fiery petals

Vicar, councillor and others tucking in

Chitter chatter in the glade 

And clearing up. Time to go home.

An aerial view of the Weaveley Furze,
taken from a light plane in October 2007

The wood is well-used; here are a couple of pictures of Trustee Martin Knops giving a talk on the Furze to local people beating the bounds of Shipton-on-Cherwell and Thrupp in May 2015.

And now a sequence of four pictures showing the development of the hazel coppice:

March 2006

April 2009

June 2012

Summer 2015

The end product: beanpoles such as these and peasticks raise increasing amounts of money for the trust, topping £300 in 2014/5. Volunteers to cut them are always needed and very warmly welcome.

Here's a look at the management of the rest of the Furze:
A small area in the centre of the Furze is kept in its original state.Taken in the late 1990’s, the picture below shows the dense jungle of growth unfettered over a number of decades. The wood was in places impassable and at times frightening because it was easy to lose your bearings and feel lost. Like Sleeping Beauty amid her forest of impenetrable trees, brambles and thorns,  the Weaveley Furze needed to be re-awakened. 

By the end of the last century Old Man’s Beard (Clematis vitalba) had grown high up into the canopy of the tallest trees, providing lianas for Tarzan wannabes. 

  This invasive rambling shrub which is all too evident on the road verges in the north of Oxfordshire, is tolerated in the Weaveley Furze in specific areas eg. within the giant Holly Tree where the silky fluffy seedheads contrast with the dark green of the leaves and berries. But otherwise the clematis chokes all shrubs and trees indiscriminately.  It is a constant battle to keep the rampant growth under control and volunteers are needed for an annual cull, digging up the roots.

  Old Man’s Beard also currently thrives on the west side of the Hazel Copse, shown in the picture below.

Another early task was to clear up the old holding pens for game birds from when the Furze had been used as a pheasant shoot.

Racks of partially cleared land have been planted with appropriate saplings while denser growth flourishes on parallel stretches in between. The management plan is regularly monitored and advice sought from experts - with suggestions from everyone involved always welcome and taken into account.

Bundles and stacks of cut wood form insect and beetle 'hotels' as well as potential use for woodland products

Now meet some of the other locals:

A fungal foray smorgasbord from the Furze.

Agaricus silvaticus perhaps or maybe even the disturbing Agaricus haemorrhoidarius......... 

Mycologists are invited to identify!  

Here's an Elephant one on an Ash bole; or is it the woodland deity sticking her tongues out?

Sloes have been in abundance this year.

Gooseberries too - why not try a Weaveley Pie?

Red berries and Old Man's Beard cover the Great Holly Tree where up until the 1950s villagers would carve the name of their sweetheart. 

The 'Humber' which drains surface water from the surrounding fields.

This intermittent spring feeds the Humber, which drains into the Cherwell at Shipton, between Holy Cross and the kiss-gate on the field path to Thrupp, and then on into the Thames at Oxford.