Some two years ago I noticed an ad in 'The Cobweb' - newsletter of the Kentish Cobnuts Association, that the National Trust at Ightham Mote was looking for a new tenant for their cobnut plat.  'Not me' I thought, despite the fact that I had grown up not a quarter of a mile away in Ivy Hatch where my family had a small plat  (or 'plantation') of some 200 nut trees.  In fact our summer holidays had to be organised around when the nuts would be ripe for picking so that the family could be press-ganged into harvesting the nuts.


A year after the initial advert there were still no takers and another ad appeared.  This time I felt I might have a go and went around, in the spring time to take a look at the plat.





It consists of two main blocs, the old
 and long-established trees, with an
open space and an old shed in front....

....and a bloc of more recently-planted young trees.

The wild flowers were spectacular

and a survey, later, found fifty two different plant species.

but it was getting very overgrown and work would have to start soon or it would become a jungle

With the encouragement of friends and family, and having recently been invited onto the committee of the Kentish Cobnuts Association, I decided  I had enough support and I would go ahead. This meant talks with the National Trust, drawing up a management plan and work to find funding to kick-start the project.

*****

Towards the end of October the green light was received for the Ightham Mote cobnut restoration project to go ahead. Three thousand pounds of matched funding was to be made available from European Intereg4 funding, channelled to us via the Medway Valley Countryside Partnership working with Kent County Council. In effect this meant £1500 from MVCP to be matched with another £1500 to be raised by the project. This has been achieved with the support of the National Trust at Ightham Mote, the Kentish Cobnuts Association and private sponsors. As the matched funding is only available until the end of 2011 it was important for work to start straight away.  And there is plenty to be done.

The skilled work consists of pruning the trees, taking out the accumulation of unwanted growth, and bringing the trees back to the traditional shape where a limited number of branches bear the twiggy ends which will carry the harvest of nuts. This calls for experts, skilled in the knowledge of traditional cobnut cultivation which is what the funding will pay for.

Old trees, overgrown with young wands





Alongside this is the work of collecting and burning the prunings, clearing the thickets of brambles which, in many parts of the plat have grown into a tangled jungle and tackling the many small (and some by no means small) 'sports' of birch and willow which have taken advantage of the last few years of neglect with ambitions of their own to turn the place into a scrubby woodland. They all have to go.

By mid-November 2011 work had started, firstly on the lower of the two blocs of nut trees. These are quite young and recently-planted but  they have been left untended and a mass of wands has grown up around the original sapling, to the extent that it's almost impossible to see which is the original stem. However, the original - or what looks like the original - is selected and the rest are cut out.

                             Young trees before.....

....and after pruning has started.

At the same time work started on the upper bloc, the older trees. Here the main branches are easily distinguished but there is a lot of surplus growth which needs to go.

*****

The days have been mild in November which means

on some days fogs

....and on other days glorious sunshine which turns
the tips of the leaves golden as the sun goes down.                  


Those golden leaves however are mostly birch
sports and they too have to come out!