Lawns in lockdown

The diagonal spread leave from 7th April

5 May

John Bevington arrived planning to mow the lawns only to find that the lock housing on the container and the lock itself had been attacked with a cordless angle grinder. Fortunately the lock had held and the doors remained shut. It took some time to get through to the only EH employees still on site, who inspected and photographed the damage. George Collin was contacted and came over, and he managed to get hold of an old friend who came out with some metal bar and an electric welder to effect repairs while John carried on with the mowing.

The container is now secured with additional padlocks and the area has been put on the EH security team’s list for closer attention.

We have also replaced the two air vents on the outside wall of the pavilion and cut the grass next to the telegraph poles bordering the track.

As they say, stay alert!

28 April

Members might be interested to know what has been going on since play was effectively banned as a result of the government restrictions which came into effect at the end of March. We are continuing to mow the lawns, still at the pre-season height of 8mm using the older of our two 24 inch mowers. The spring fertiliser has been applied and the grass is growing well enough to be needing weekly cuts from now on. Lawn 6 (the area between lawns 2 and 4) is suffering from damage caused by crows pecking out the surface for reasons best known to themselves.

Elsewhere the cowslips behind the container have increased and are in full bloom, and we also appear to have a resident cock pheasant which has been seen patrolling the rough grass by the fence. A macabre discovery was made on Monday 28 April when the lower portion of a young deer’s hind leg was found on lawn 1. The rest of the carcase was nowhere in sight. It could have been a predator or a poacher. The limb was bagged up and handed over to EH for their gamekeeper’s attention.

Back in January we cut back the brambles that were extending from the wood into the rough grass, the idea being that EH could then cut the grass right up to the trees thus denying cover to the rabbits (players on lawn 4 needing a natural break will now have to look elsewhere). The brambles have now sprouted again and have been sprayed, but will need a second application. The thistles have also been decapitated by the Honda rotary mower.

Further reports (hopefully not too many) to follow.

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