We are delighted to announce that we’ve recently been awarded a grant of £1,221 from the Norfolk Community Foundation’s Greening Our Communities fund. This money will help us to continue protecting the unique environment of Train Wood, with an emphasis on improving the woodland for wildlife.
Over the next year, we plan to resume regular litter picks, support habitat management, install bird and bat boxes, and create a programme of community-focused events, including led walks and biodiversity recording.
Since the pandemic hit, many of us have been more grateful than ever for the green space and natural escape provided by Train Wood and the Marriott’s Way. With this in mind, it feels like an opportune moment to start thinking about – and acting on – ways to celebrate, enhance, and share the wonders of Train Wood, including by strengthening the friends group itself. We hope to build membership and support, as well as to strengthen our relationships with some of the many remarkable community groups working throughout Norfolk and beyond.
If you are interested in getting involved, please get in touch! We would love to hear your ideas for the future of Train Wood, and always warmly welcome new members.
Click here for more information on the Greening Our Communities fund or the Norfolk Community Foundation.
This policy regarding rough sleeping in Train Wood has been discussed and agreed by the committee, with informal advice from local agencies. We are seeking input to its development and welcome thoughts from users, which can be emailed to our secretary Susan Cubbage via susannette12@gmail.com. The policy will be finalised by 20.02.19 but will be kept under review and can thereafter be amended by discussion through committee.
Context: Friends of Train Wood and Marriott’s Way, a constituted community group, recognises that there has been a steep increase in homelessness and rough sleeping which has led to an increasing amount of people seeking to live for short amounts of time in the wood. Some have told us that they have taken refuge there as they feel safer there than sleeping exposed in the city. We recognise that they are a range of people, some vulnerable adults facing complex problems and it is not their choice to sleep rough. Some seem to suffer from alcohol and/or drug dependency, are not able to manage their condition and are in need of help.
Issues: Litter including alcohol cans and used syringes and paraphernalia in the wood; although not all rough sleepers are drug or alcohol users and much is not from rough sleepers. Encampments are sometimes abandoned derelict and include a range of large and small items which are unsightly and too large to remove at litter picks – these we ask the council fly tipping team to remove.
Policy: As a group we all aim to look after Train Wood and Marriott’s Way, and make sure it can be used by the public in a safe way whilst also being supportive and humane to all. We seek to achieve these aims by working with those using the wood including those living in it. We:
November 2018
Young FONCs fan Sam Anderson was presented with a special picture
Preparations for Norwich’s first major Bioblitz are gathering pace.
The station is starting to emerge, piece by piece, from its blanket of nettles, brambles and earth.
That’s thanks to five hours from the Friends Of Norwich City Station team last Saturday afternoon, dodging showers, handing out leaflets for the event and chatting to the public. The team revealed the area around the platform by clearing nettles, cleaning the brickwork up on the wall, and uncovering some of the coaling stage with its crane mounting. Its outside facing wall is now almost complete, and further excavations here will produce significant results.
Two special visitors also popped by. Young Sam Anderson, who made such a touching and informative film about the railway heritage was presented with a special photo by the FONCS team.
John Batley, of FONCs, said: “The fact the lad had watched our videos and copied them was extremely touching and I hope he can take away his visit and encourage others of his generation.”
Sophie Cabot of Norfolk County Council, the newly appointed Marriott’s Way heritage trail officer, also came along to say hello.
This weekend there is a litter pick planned on Saturday 20th from 10am to 12noon. Gloves and litterpickers provided, all welcome to help spruce up the wood ready for next weekend:the Bioblitz on May 27th. If you would like to help out at the Bioblitz, do get in touch.
Looking good: the platform after FONCs had finished
On a sunny May day Train Wood looks more beautiful than ever, and young Sam Anderson sets out with his dad to discover where Norwich City Station once stood. On the way they discover the remains of engine sheds, coal sheds…and even where a train fell off the bridge on a hot summers day into the river…
Thanks to Friends of Norwich City Station for the photographs, and inspiring this wonderful trip. Looking forward to the next episode about Hellesdon Station.
Poster for BioBlitz
This time four years ago, Train Wood was up for sale by Norfolk County Council – on an auction list – and its future looked bleak.
But a hard fought campaign and the determination of the many who love Norwich’s wonderful secret riverbank woodland – and the fantastic Marriott’s Way – saved it for the public. Now it looks set to have its most exciting event ever in May.
Railway heritage and natural history, as well as refreshments, activities for children and more are going to be on offer. With the help of Norfolk Wildlife Trust, supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund, the event will reveal railway history and record the many species on site. All sorts of experts will be coming along and the site will finally be officially recorded as the precious place that it is. Come along, and bring your friends. If you would like to be involved in helping on the day, please get in touch! Let’s celebrate, and make sure together that it will always be a people’s wood.
Walks and talks on offer
Did you know there were 20 different kinds of buttercup? Me neither. But thanks to Norfolk Wildlife Trust’s Gemma Walker, the Train Wood plant hunters do now.
On Sunday morning she came out bright and early with us on our first ever plant survey. We bumped into all sorts of people (as you do in Train Wood) – from the former senior curator of Natural History at Norwich Museum, Dr Tony Irwin, who wished us well – to a guerrilla conservationist, who we discovered (somewhat to her displeasure) deep in a hitherto unexplored area of the wood, clearing brambles alone and in secret. She wishes to remain nameless, and we wish her well in her task.
Christina, Gemma and Tish get down to surveying the Marriott’s Way
Many families, dog walkers, cyclists and runners also stopped and said hello to the four of us, and our number grew as family and friends joined in.
But back to the plants. There were hundreds. It was hard to get round the wood when you had to keep stopping to poke, prod and wonder; and identifying them soon became interesting, then a bit addictive.
Gemma had a tale to tell about many. Like Herb Robert, so named by an enemy of the said Robert because it is rather smelly. Or Fireweed, aka Rose Bay Willow Herb, often found near train stations. Or Hemlock, which Socrates was forced to drink one teaspoonful of, to put him to death (there is a patch just by the Marriott’s Way, so beware).
Identifying can be straightforward or it can be tricky. In the case of our special buttercup, it is easy – it has downward-pointing sepals (the bits under the petals) – which makes it a rather special Bulbous Buttercup. I did take a picture, but it blazed so golden in the sunlight that of all the shots, it was blurred.
It was fascinating to find so many currants and berries in the wood – red, white and black currant, and raspberries along the bank of the river – as well as brambles everywhere, and appleblossom too. This place used to be partly allotments, which might explain it – but Gemma mentioned that redcurrant is also a native plant of wet woodland.
Apple blossom
Plants are of course the basis of life, and there was plenty of wildlife in the wood as well. We were serenaded by Black caps, Blackbirds and a Song thrush; a Stock Dove purred its gentle hoots, and then wood pigeon joined in. A robin followed us for a bit, and we saw a moorhen sitting on its nest, artfully constructed in tree branches overhanging but not in the water. When the babies hatch, they jump out of the nest straight in to the river.
Everywhere, insects were after the first nectar – a male orange tip butterfly, sunning itself and revealing its amazing patterned underwings (it lays its eggs on garlic mustard, which we also saw); a red tailed bumble bee and a bee fly (yes indeed, a fly that looks like a bee). It was great to share the sharp eyes and experience of the group. I never would have noticed the ‘Thrushes anvil’ – yellow and brown snail shells broken open on a hard spot where the increasingly rare bird brings its dinner to crack open.
At a conservative estimate, we counted about a hundred species of plant. As Train Wood’s very own Community Wildlife Surveyors, we’ll be listing and counting plants every month this summer, mapping all our findings with the help of Norfolk Wildlife Trust, funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund. The results will be used to protect and enhance this wonderful wild wet and dry woodland, a nature oasis in the city. Do come and join us – and pop along to our BioBlitz on May 27th too.
Orange Tip Butterfly
Under wings of orange tip, ready for quick camouflage
Garlic mustard, where the Orange tip lays its eggs. An amazing smell of garlic when the leaf is torn.
Cowslips by the engine shed
Latest work to uncover the railway history of the Marriott’s Way
John Batley of Friends Of Norwich City Station with an update on work to explore the railway heritage of the site…
We were back on site this weekend with superb progress on the end of the LNER engine shed.
By future removal of the earth/spoil/dredge pile at the end of the shed (by three meters), we will see the entire floor plan, and possibly the extended brick floor that was outside of the shed.
Underneath the 1946 LNER engine shed we have found the evidence of the 1882 Lynn and Fakenham shed which was there until its destruction in the bombing of the station in April 1942.
It goes to prove that the LNER built the new shed over the original shed floor. Even more impressive is that we have located fantastic remains of the still-buried platform 1 outer facing wall. This extends six meters past the end of the coal stage.
Some of the platform shows edging stones and dentine brick detailing which means some of the platform is to full height from the trackbed.
Find out more this May 27th, a very special day when the FONCs crew will be on site with more information, and there will be a chance to observe and record nature at the same time as part of the first ever Train Wood Bioblitz. There will be two railway walk and talks, and we will be laying flowers and holding a minute’s silence at the crash site of B24 Liberator ‘Lady Jane’, to mark the sacrifice 2nd Ralph Dooley and his crew made in November 1944 – yet more important history of this amazing area.
Uncovering some intact railway heritage
Gemma Walker of NWT and Ursula Juta of the Norfolk Rivers Trust with Friends of Train Wood committee members and volunteers at work on site planning the event
It was destroyed by bombs in the war. But now we’re planning to make Train Wood the target of a different kind of blitz.
The wood is to be the focus of attention by an army of citizen scientists and experts in nature and railway history later this spring.
We’ve teamed up with Norfolk Wildlife Trust to hold a ‘BioBlitz’.
Supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund, the event aims to record as many species possible in one day – 27 May – in the 12 acres of the wood. And there will be walks and talks on railway history too, harking back to the days when the site was Norwich’s ‘City Station’. The event will be suitable for all ages and all activities will be free.
The team met on site this week to plan the set of ‘stations’ where wildlife including plants, birds, trees, mosses and minibeasts will be spotted and recorded. We expect hundreds of people to turn up to help us, by taking tickets and walking the site recording as they go.
We’re aiming for at least 300 species, and the day will also feature railway walks and talks by the John Batley and his team at the Friends of Norwich City Station, and pond and river dipping by the Norfolk Rivers Trust. Bat walks, bird walks and tree walks are also planned.
We already have the support of lots of experts, including Patrick Barkham, author of The Butterfly Isles and Badgerlands, who said: “Train Wood hasn’t been surveyed for years. So this year’s BioBlitz is a great chance to experience the magic of discovery. Knowing our local nature is so important – it’s also fun!”
The main activities of the Train Wood BioBlitz will run from 11am – 4pm on 27 May 2017, with extra walks and talks planned from dawn till dusk. The latest details of the event will be posted here as it is organised.
Do get in touch if you would like to help out on the day!
Friends of Train Wood and Marriott’s Way are delighted to announce that they have been awarded £400 by the Goodman Trust for the purchase of tools. Norfolk Community Foundation helped the Friends apply for the cash. Chairman Alan Cubbage said: “This cash is a boost to help us restore and protect this precious woodland, which has been neglected in the past. We are aiming to help maintain and even increase species diversity and enable people to get involved in and enjoy one of Norwich’s best kept secrets, a rare wet and dry woodland by the lovely river Wensum.”
