Pylewell Park

Waterside Natural History Society visit to Pylewell Park

The government has recently published its ‘National Ecosystem Assessment’ report and our visit to Pylewell Park was an opportunity to carry out our own assessment of the value of the countryside. The idea of putting a monetary value on the countryside for the year 2000 was that the value can be compared in future years to assess if it has improved or deteriorated. Some of our members could set the benchmark a half century earlier and regularly say what has happened since but this does not stop us checking the current state.
We started our walk from the end of Shotts Lane to the east of Lymington and walked down a track towards the shore. The intention was to walk along the shore eastwards and turn back inland along the old smugglers route called Tanners Lane. When we reached the Solent Way footpath we were to turn westwards and back to Shotts Lane thus walking round Pylewell Park and house. The tide level was low when we arrived; we had seen the level as we drove through Beaulieu, so we went along the shore as soon as possible.
The dry weather in the spring and early summer followed by heavy rain in June has upset the flowering times of many plants. Some of the early flowering ones have had a short flush of weak growth before going quickly to seed then flowering again and the later ones have tried to flower early before putting on a spurt of vegetative growth. The result of this confusion is that there is a great variety of plants in flower at the moment. Amongst the umbellifers Cow parsley has turned to seed in the hedgerows but has been replaced by Hogweed and Rough Chervil. This latter was suffused with purple but Hemlock Water Dropwort on the contrary was an innocuous grass green colour, exactly the opposite of what you would expect a poisonous plant to look like. A patch of Celery leaved buttercup was seen in a boggy stretch of path with its small petals and large pineapple shaped seed heads.
Plants along the shingle beach have adapted to the conditions and add variety to those growing inland. The yellow Biting Stonecrop and pinkish white English Stonecrop gave a rockery effect to the shore whilst Common Centaury grows inland or on the seashore. Scarlet Pimpernel and Sea Campion were also seen as well as Sea Milkwort. This latter plant is not a member of the milkwort family and is unusual in not having any petals. The sepals take the place of petals and are a pink colour so the plant survives quite happily with its adaptation. A single Yellow Horned Poppy plant that had established itself will surely start to colonise the area.
The weather was quite windy during our walk so we were not surprised when we did not see many butterflies. We did however see a few Meadow Browns, a Red Admiral and a Small Copper. Birds were also difficult to see but quite a large flock of Canada Geese were resting on the mudflats and the usual Black Headed Gulls were fighting for anything in sight.
Our walk was a very enjoyable one with a wide range of wild flowers and scenery. How did we value the countryside after our walk? Well ‘priceless’ seemed to be the majority decision.