It’s that time of year again, which means Andrew Swift has been carefully researching nearby hotspots to see the region’s wonderful bells in bloom.
When conservation charity Plantlife ran a poll to find Britain’s favourite flower, the bluebell came out top. This may come as something of a surprise. Seen singly or in garden settings, bluebells are charming, intricate, beguiling – but not especially spectacular. Seen en masse, however – and few flowers are more inclined to bloom en masse than bluebells – it is a different story.
However many times you may have come across them, the first glimpse in late spring of swathes of bluebells casting a luminous glow across a dappled forest floor always seems to have an air of impossibility about it.
The colour of bluebells seen en masse – a blue so deep that no camera can capture it – seems somehow otherworldly. Their transformative luminescence is something even the most revered poets have struggled to catch. In the woods around Slad in Gloucestershire, Laurie Lee saw ‘the mysterious bluebells collect in pools, deep and still in the forest shadows’, while Gerard Manley Hopkins saw bluebells ‘in falls of sky-colour washing the brows and slacks of the ground with vein-blue’, making ‘wood bank and brakes wash wet like lakes’. What both writers are seeking to express is the ineluctable way in which bluebells dissolve and liquefy solid ground into something which partakes not only of the quality of water but also that of the sky.
Given this transcendent, unsettling quality, it is hardly surprising that they feature in folk legends, especially those linked with fairies or enchantment. Among the names by which they were once known are witch’s thimbles and fairy flowers. The Welsh called bluebells ‘clychau’r gog’ – cuckoo bells – because they flowered when the cuckoo was first heard. They were also known as cuckoo flowers in Somerset, a county which had a bewildering choice of other names for them, including blue bottles, culverkeys, adder’s flowers and Pride of the Wood. In Dorset, they were ‘granfer-frygles’, which in an abbreviated form – ‘greggles’ – found its way into Hardy’s Mayor of Casterbridge.
The native English bluebell – hyacinthoides non-scripta – became established in this country shortly after the last ice age. Our damp climate suits it perfectly, and it is often said that ‘the wetter the winter, the brighter the blooms’ – so this year’s displays should be magnificent.
Although widespread, bluebells take years to become established and spread only slowly, so the most spectacular displays are the product of long maturation. Bluebells are also are a good indicator of ancient woodland. Once damaged or disturbed, however, they may never recover, and, as trampling through them is one of the surest ways to destroy them, it is important to stick to well-trodden paths when passing among them.
They have long been considered under threat from their Spanish cousins – hyacinthoides hispanica – first planted in English gardens in the 17th century, which have not only spread into the wild but also cross-pollinated with them.
For the moment, however, English bluebells seem to be holding their own. A survey by the Woodland Trust in 2017 found that 80% of the bluebells in English woodlands were of the native variety – and hopefully they’ve continued this reign.
See the spectacle yourself
By now, the first bluebells will already be in bloom. By St George’s Day (23 April) they will be in full spate and by mid-May this unmissable spectacle will be over for another year. Everyone will have their own favourite bluebell woods, and the internet is awash with suggestions of where to see them at their best. Fortunately, you don’t have to go far; even in Bristol, you are spoilt for choice.
The wooded slopes around Blaise Castle will soon be carpeted in bluebells, while Leigh Woods offers a choice of habitats, one of the most spectacular being Paradise Bottom. At Ashton Court, bluebells bloom in the woods near the house, although for something more expansive, Church Wood, off Clarken Combe Road, on the west side of the park, is worth seeking out.
St Anne’s Wood in Brislington is a haven not only for bluebells but also – for those who fancy a spot of foraging – wild garlic. Closer to the city centre is Arnos Vale Cemetery, now one of the city’s most diverse and important wildlife habitats, where swathes of bluebells amid the tombs provide a link with the copses and hedgerows that once covered the site.
Among the reserves owned by Avon Wildlife Trust, Weston Big Wood near Weston in Gordano and Prior’s Wood near Portbury are famous for their displays of bluebells, but at both sites parking is limited, so it is advisable to avoid times when they are likely to be busy. A little farther out, on the northern fringes of Mendip, the verdant depths of Bourton Combe near Flax Bourton and Goblin Combe near Cleeve, are also carpeted with bluebells.
In Gloucestershire, the woods which inspired Laurie Lee are still as glorious – and as full of bluebells – as they were in his day. Frith Wood, an ancient beechwood on the ridge above Slad, is particularly splendid, while the Laurie Lee Way, a five-mile circular trail, takes in several more woods he knew intimately – and after completing it you can drop into his local, the Woolpack, for lunch.
Another pub where he was a regular is the Butcher’s Arms at Sheepscombe, three miles to the north, from where paths lead up to Saltridge and Workman’s Woods, where bluebells also flourish in profusion.
National Trust spots and blue-flecked hills
A few miles west, in a hauntingly beautiful hidden valley, lies Woodchester Park, owned by the National Trust, with ornamental lakes, an abandoned Victorian Gothic mansion and trails winding through high beech and oak woods rife with bluebells. Other National Trust properties within easy reach where bluebells abound include Dyrham, Tyntesfield, Montacute and Stourhead. And, while the National Arboretum at Westonbirt may be most celebrated for its autumn → colours, the display of bluebells in Silk Wood, one of the arboretum’s oldest patches of woodland, is just as dazzling.
Although bluebells are generally assumed to do well only in dappled shade, swathes of them can also be found – if the soil is slightly acidic – in open downland. Cam Long Down and Peaked Down on the Cotswold Way near Dursley are prime spots for bluebells, and the distant view of green hills flecked with waves of hazy blue is an astonishing sight. Bluebells can also be found on bracken-covered coastal headlands, such as the windy slopes of Brean Down, adding a deeper shade of blue to a palette dominated by the sky and the restless sea.
These are but a small selection of the sites where bluebells can be seen in all their glory for a few brief weeks every year. There are many more where the displays as just as fantastic. There is one place, however, to which I am drawn again and again at this time of year – and not just because of the bluebells.
Lower Woods, near Wickwar, in the care of the Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust, is not only one of the largest areas of ancient woodland in the South West; its terrain is so varied and so unmanicured, it evokes an extraordinary sense of remoteness and timelessness. Exploring the disorienting and labyrinthine network of ancient tracks that criss-cross these woods, there is an abiding sense that you are glimpsing what much of England would once have looked like. Losing your bearings in a medieval woodland amid the azure dazzle of bluebells only adds yet another level of enchantment to one of the most beguiling natural sights this country has to offer.
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