A few weeks ago I paid a visit to Thetford Forest, in particular, to Lynford Arboretum, a beautiful spot located in the North East corner of the forest, and somewhere I’d not been to before, so I was keen to give the old camera a bit of an airing and to see what I could see.
Owned by the Forestry Commission, it is the UK’s largest man made lowland forest and covers over 18,700 hectares, and is a Site of Special Scientific Interest. The forest was created after the First World War to provide a strategic reserve of timber, since the country had lost so many oaks and other slow-growing trees as a consequence of the war's demands.
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| A tranquil forest scene. |
From its creation in the 1920’s, Thetford Forest’s predominant use was to produce timber for a wide variety of outlets, and this continued up until 1990, when the forest was designated as a Forest Park. This refocused the main objective of the forest towards wildlife conservation and visitor attraction.
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| A played around with a bit of intentional camera movement. Here I panned upwards as I took the shot, smearing the pine trees vertically along the image. |
Lynford Arboretum is home to over 200 tree species, with many rare varieties, including the Serbian Spruce, which is rarely encountered in the wild. It has been calculated that an ancient oak tree found in the south of the Arboretum was planted in 1671. The same year that saw Charles II on the throne, and Mark Anthony, the Roman General of Anthony and Cleopatra fame, die.
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| These next shots were taken while zooming the lens very quickly while pressing the shutter, which gives some interesting results. |
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| These two shots remind of the speeder chases in Return of the Jedi, and that is never a bad thing. |
I had a bit of a wander around and soon found myself in the pine forest, lowland Britain’s largest example, as I can never resist a pine forest. The rows of plumb straight trunks and lush green canopy are always an enchanting sight. And as the arboretum was not particularly busy as a whole, I had the whole pine grove to myself, with just the ever present chirruping of the birds in the afternoon sunshine, and a couple of skittish muntjacks timorously emerging from the shadows for company.
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| The bright sunshine illuminates the forest floor. |
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| One of the grass trails that wind their way through the woodland. A muntjack appeared out of the greenery along here, but as per, I was too slow to get a picture of it. |
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| Beech trees looking stunning against the bright green leafage. |
After getting my fill of pines, I traversed the boundary of the plantation, where it borders onto land owned by the Ministry of Defence, and not welcoming to visitors judging by the numerous signs dotted along the perimeter, and found myself among a collection of beech trees. Their smooth trunks, rippled and fluid in an assortment of tan, grey and white hues, rising up from the verdurous ground into sprays of sparkling green foliage, still fresh and unspoiled in their spring vibrancy.
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| With the leaves catching the sunlight, they seem to glimmer among the tree trunks. |
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| A frond splash of apple green. |
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| A muscular looking tree trunk. |
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| I liked the pattern of shadows these leaves created on the base of the tree. |
Once I’d gotten a few pictures of the handsome scenes around me, I headed back to the car, but, and I know I often say it, this was a place that would definitely require another visit.
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| A minty looking natural tableau. |
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