Mind Bursts

(Downloadable maps (habitats, tree and other surveys) are available here > https://bit.ly/MKSTSMaps )

There are three ways into the woods, from the farm gate to the north on Markstakes Lane, from the south east along Balneath Lane from Little Towning or from south west via a gate leading from  South Chailey. 

This route I am going to describe is from the double-gate and flint wall along Markstakes Lane.

I have this habit of tracking all my visits with AllTrails. In the first year this was to help me retrace my steps to a patch of the wood where I had seen something interesting. Or to find my way back to a specific tree, whether when one of the recognised trees on the Tree Register, or others that I thought out to be, or were simply characterful and had an interesting story to tell. 

A survey of the trees in 2010/2011 acts as our starting point. 

From the gate we can head into the woods to the right down the western flank, or head east, quickly turning across the common into the centre of the woods, or pushing over to the western boundary. Whichever route you take you end up heading south every so slightly on an incline towards the watershed that runs east to west across the centre of the Common (woodland streams after heavy rain run both north, and south) 

We’re taking the path most trodden closer to the western boundary and will begin to pick our way through the 34 trees that were recognised in the last tree survey completed in 2011 picking out notable, ancient or veteran trees. A map locating these trees, as well as mapping the different zones across Markstakes Common is available as a PDF to view online or to download. 

Ash : Tree 1 is a three stem mature Ash tree [girth 302cm @1.2m] It is on the edge of the wood, towards the boundary between the path and the Furzeley Farm. Until I realised there was a map plotting all of these trees with GridPoints to match rather than simply a list of them I spent a good deal of time ferreting around in the far northwestern corner by the road and found a two stem Ash with a companion Ash which appeared to fit the description, indeed there is a third such Ash on the boundary another 100m to the south – wherein lies the nature of picking out one tree from a group of similar others. In an ancient wood such as Markstakes Common it is surely a health sign that there are many other candidates that nearly meet the criteria, or meet the criteria but have gone unrecognised to date – or will meet the criteria in several decades (or centuries) time.

Isolating these three mature Ash trees from the others here, what does each have to say? 

Ash (tree 1) is the central of these three trees and appears to have three healthy stems – I would not say this for the others, or the additional ‘notable’ Ash (tree 25) at the furthest southern edge of the Common. 

Ash (tree 1) is open to the west, the canopy flopping out from the wood like a mop of thick, unruly hair on a teenager in a boyband. It is surrounded by a dense undergrowth of bracken and brambles. It is best viewed, partially blocked, looking back (to the north west) as you head down the path, or from the path that transects a corner paddock/lawn of Furzeley Farm that is a right of way looking south east. There are no signs of fungi in the trunks, though one substantial branch high up in the canopy is clearly dead and parts of the canopy appear a little less full than you might expect from an entirely healthy tree.

‘Alt Ash (tree 1b as I’m calling it) (to the north) and ‘alt Ash 1c’, as I am denoting them, have different stories to tell. I think it’s worth considering them because it warns of where any mature Ash here might be headed. 

The Ash close to the northern flint wall of Markstakes Common and most easily described as being in the farthest corner, is dead, or mostly so. Some would argue that it is not really three stems, but rather a two stem tree with a another tree close by – this is all debatable, with the root system clearly closely entangled beneath the ground and the three stems even if they grew up independently they did so at the same time, the girth of each being so close, the orientation of each tree or stem the same. One is long dead and had a flourishing of white oyster mushrooms in 2022, a second stem is pockmarked with holes drilled out by a woodpecker (and in part rotted by King Alfred’s Cakes fungi) and only shows signs of life in spring and summer when parts of its moth-eaten canopy produces leaves, while the third stem has, for now, a healthier look to it. It was around the base of these trees that I first spotted the common puffball, a fungi which in 2023 has been present everywhere beneath the trees of Markstakes Common. 

Ash (tree 1c I’m calling it)  I stumbled upon simply because I remained so unsure I had spotted the right tree in relation to the survey of 2011 earlier in the year and here I found myself looking at an ash with stems of a similar girth – but a two stem specimen. I noted it, took some pictures and put it down on the map with a GridPoint. Now that I’ve returned to it a few times it will be one of the three Ash trees I keep an eye on simply to see how each fairs. 

The only other Ash on the Tree Register is tree 24, another multi-stemmed Ash on the far south-western boundary alongside Starvecrow Wood (We’ll come to it again in due course, but) … like many of the Ash hereabouts  it is facing troubled times. This old laid/coppiced Ash had five healthy looking stems in 2011, but now looks decidedly motheaten: one stem has gone, another broken and at least a further two are dead. A close look at the canopy suggests that one stem lives on, a second is struggling and the third mostly likely dead. This applies to many of the Ash trees in the grove to the east which forms part of Starvecrow Wood. 

Tree 2. As you follow the path on a first visit as it meanders slightly beneath the trees you realise immediately that there are many old trees here, and given the fallen oak), its stump intermittently covered in sulphur tuft mushrooms, that fallen trees and branches are for the most part left to rot. Left and right, and above, there are trees of note – though few notable in a crowd. There’s what I would describe as a shard of bark 3m high, incongruous in its own right, but it has a young stem (or epicormic branch) opportunistically growing from it and by all accounts reaching close enough to the canopy to get some light. What soon captures the eye though is what I call ‘the monster beech’, by far the largest, widest, tallest beech of Markstakes Common. It should have a name, in the register it is simply ‘Tree 2’. In my innocence when my interest in trees began I wanted to know the approximate age of every tree and then qualified this in my own mind by nicknaming a tree George II, or Victoria or some such to denote its approximate age. I was eventually disavowed of this as I learnt and could see for myself how many variables are at play to give a tree certain characteristics of growth – and certainly the tree in a wood grows quite differently to a tree in open parkland, or in a busy town. 

Tree 2 I think of as the ‘monster’ beech. It is the most significant beech in the woods and has a girth of 4.86m. It is certainly ‘notable’ – maybe climbing into its crown may reveal some traits that would lean it towards ‘ancient’. If this is the standard for notable, then there should be few other beech trees to pick out for the Tree Register in the woods of Markstakes Common, yet 15 made it into the registry created in 2010/11. I have come to wonder if this tree was one, that two saplings growing close together blended into each other. At some point between 2011-2022 a branch came down and lodged itself against the trunk – where it has been for at least the last two years. 

Had it been growing elsewhere in the woods the beech just 40m north of Beech (tree 2) would surely have made it into the Tree Register – though it has a slender and tall trunk, there’s a significant density and height in its canopy to make it stand out (IMHO). 

That said, a tree categorisation of my own goes like this: if I am taking friends around the wood for the first time, where do I take them, what trees do we stop and admire … and what trees would sell themselves simply as they are spotted on our meanderings? This beech therefore, like only a few oak and hornbeam, would make it onto my ‘short list’ – the others being tree 5, the only ‘veteran’ tree in these woods, a Hornbeam, a couple of ancient oaks, trees 14 and 15, and possibly the fallen hornbeam survivor, tree 23. Of course, to reach these stand out trees, there are many others to talk about along the way.

Tree 3, is a Hornbeam, is ‘notable’ for its character – what I think of as its life story, as well as its girth, which is significant, though not so much greater than several other nearby hornbeams. There is competition here with a close-by beech tree which suggests why the hornbeam favoured growing away to the north, investing so much in a huge branch that it eventually broke. The tree leans away from the beech, not unduly precariously. Though in the wood, there is some exposure to south westerly gales which may explain some of the growth in the trunk. 

This part of the edge of the woods has a veritable grove of hornbeam trees, one very old, that we are about to look at, but also several nearby, like or not dissimilar to Tree 3, a similar width of trunk, not leaning as much, facing more, or less competition from beech trees. In 2021 a couple of large boughs of a beech came down, just missing the Hornbeam – as we’ll see around the woods, when a tree comes down or a substantial stem, or branch, it can take with it, or damage other trees and have consequences in relation to how the canopy is then open and the most fortunately position trees can benefit. 

Tree 4 is a beech tree with a dead hornbeam companion. The hornbeam, as you see often around the wood, took the tactic of splitting off in two directions, hoping beyond hope I assume to reach beyond the enclosing canopy of the beech. In this case, in a wood, surrounded by other established beech and hornbeam it finally ran out of options, and energy and died. 

Beech and Hornbeam are a common combination right across Markstakes Common. There are many examples, with an equal number where the hornbeam lives on or where it has succumbed to the beech’s superior leaf cover and therefore smothering tendency – something that can take many decades, even centuries to pull off. Here we see a fine example of how a hornbeam behaves when competing for light under a woodland canopy. 

Tree 5 is the only tree in Markstakes Common that is considered ‘veteran’. It is a large crumbling, pollarded, sculptured chalice of wood that has plenty of life left in it still, even if several huge limbs have broken off and others have died in the last year – most likely victims of the UK drought of 2022. The features of a tree in its final stages of life are clear here: rotting wood in the crown, dead branches, wood strewn around the woodland floor, and fungi appearing in the most rotted parts of the trunk, as well as in the wood on the ground. Fungi on the trunk include porcelain, while there has been slime mould on the rotting wood on the floor.

I feel it is best described with an upraised hand, the crown of the tree, where the pollarding took place is the palm of my hand, each finger a stem. Over the last ten years or so the thumb has dropped off, and in the last year, coming out of the drought of 2022, one elongated stem, like a giant’s fishing rod, having touched the ground, and with the possibility of self-layered, died, lost of sinus qualities, and then broke.  I have found various fungi here: porcelain, split gill and cinder fungus on or in the decaying wood of one side of the trunk, and candlesnuff and slime mould in the decaying branches on the ground. 

Back to the path for … 

Beech (Tree 6) is another substantial, tall and characterful beech tree with a surviving companion hornbeam. There were two hornbeam companions here at one stage, the dead, hollowed out remains of one is now used to host sticks like an Edwardian hallway brolly holder, while the second appears to be thriving – its survival plan to reach out under the canopy of the beech to the south east now vindicated by chance after one of the beech’s substantial branches broke off creating a significant opening in the canopy and an opportunity for the hornbeam to exploit. This mature beech has outward signs of trunk decay – there is hoof fungus in the base of the trunk, evidence of cinder crust around the broken stem, nor is the companion hornbeam happy, the bark around its base having rotted away to the hardwood. 

The Hoof Fungus is a parasitic fungus that feeds on living or dead trees, especially hardwoods like birch and beech. It usually grows on the trunk or branches of the tree, where it forms a large conk-like mass. The fungus can cause a white rot in the wood, breaking down the lignin and cellulose and leaving behind a soft, spongy texture.

 An indication of how things may go are shown in the next tree … 

Cinder fungus typically grows on dead or dying trees, where it feeds on the wood and causes the wood to decay. It can cause problems for trees that are already weakened by other factors, as it can speed up the decay process and make the tree more susceptible to wind damage and other environmental stressors.

Beech (tree 7) fell 5 to 6 or more years ago. It was recorded and photographed in 2011, the trunk with its hoof fungus of note. Artist’s Bracket fungus thrives in the hollowed out trunk. 

It isn’t the only beech to have come down in the last few years, or likely to be the last, a substantial beech came down across the central path now leaving a significant hole in the canopy, while there is a now dead, though standing mature beech next between the path and the shallow pond which is once or twice a year smothered in … slimy beech cap fungus.  

Tree 8, is a three stem hornbeam full of character. Three stems grew together for many decades until the central one was caught by the wind, or simply gravity, knocked it askew. The reach from these three stems is extraordinary, with the stems reaching a long way out over the woodland floor then up and into the canopy. It makes you wonder how vulnerable it might be. As you come to know the woods you see many three stem hornbeams at different stages of growth – often reaching out, tentacles like towards patches of light rather than bolting for the canopy where oak, and especially beech dominates. 

Beech (Tree 9) broke at around 3m perhaps three to five years ago – some indication of this comes from the amount and size of new sprouting growth from the broken trunk – growth that thrived in early 2022, then died back in the 2022 drought and did not grow back in 20023, but was replaced by further new growth from other buds in 2023. 

Beech (Tree 10) has had a complicated life as witness by its several twisting stems, two at the base with a companion oak, splitting into three further parts at around 4m and then a branch from one of the trunks competing for light with its companion to the point of being substantially warn down along a good 2m length, leading to some decay of a secondary stem and a peculiar twisting character. 

There is/was an oak companion. It is now dead, but possibly living in 2011.  

This kind of companion battle, over many decades, between different species and the same species, creates multiple intriguing outcomes across the wood. There are surviving oak companions closely tied into a mature beech, there are competing young beech companions trying to survive against the trunk and under the canopy of a mature oak – and every combination including tussles with hornbeam, holly, yew and birch.

Oak (Tree 11), is a two stemmed oak encircled by holly. It appears not to have changed one jot in 13 years. Personally I can’t see what affords it any special status. It is a mature woodland oak, the girth of the stems is not that great, there is moss and lichens on the branches but no hollowing, or epiphytes As we are about to encounter there are a couple of other oaks which are more easily recognised as exceptional and old with ancient characteristics.  

Beech (Tree 12) is a mature beech pollard that for a tree in the middle of a wood shows a fairly uniform cauliflower like growth from the stem into the canopy, what’s remarkable here however is a companion oak that has grown alongside the beech for many decades (or a century or more) , at first the oak appears to be as straight as a lamp post, then with a few twists and a division in two it commands the very centre of the canopy – this is easiest to pick out in late autumn after the beech has lost its leaves as the oak retains its crinkled, orange-brown leaves for a week or so longer. 

From different angles its twists, contortions and battles with the ‘host’ beech are more apparent. There is a significant wound in the oak stem some 8m high and soon after the 2022 drought a couple of largish branches broke off the beech – they hang in the tree like wind-blown parasols. 

Another way to pick out the oak in the top of the canopy is during a strong breeze as the oak with such a tall stem sways considerably more than the beech in the process producing a resonant creaking sound. I’ve taken a hundred pictures, used binoculars, shot video and drawn it at least a dozen times at least. 

(Oak) Tree 13 is surely one of the most iconic trees of Markstakes Common and one that will always bring a sense of joy and wonder to those seeing it for the first time – not a gnarly veteran many hundreds of years old, it has plenty of scale and age all the same, broad, arching limbs reaching out and around its entire circumference, with many broken branches, dead wood on the grown and a huge canopy.

I wonder at the huge, long, heavy limbs that stretch out in the lower canopy – over the decades a few of the larger ones have broken, fallen to the ground or bent, and snapped and appear to prop the tree up like the buttress of a mediaeval cathedral. This tree is mature, in its 4th or 5th age, there are ‘ancient’ features but no sign that its crown is dying back (or growing back), indeed from a distance it appears to have a dense, full archetypal ‘branching broccoli’ set of branches. 

I’ve not known about this magnificent Oak for two seasons only – one large enough branch from somewhere in the canopy has broken off and fallen to the ground, but for the life of me I’ve found it impossible to find where it came from … and it wasn’t dropped by a passing crow! Worryingly, coming through the 2022 drought I noticed some of the tiny oak saplings in the bracken that were suffering from mildew – then I noticed that a large oak nearby was also covered in mildew, the entire canopy a slight silvery colour. If this takes hold it will weaken oaks and make them vulnerable. 

(Oak) Tree 14, has grown up somewhat more compromised by the wood than oak (tree 13) with mature beech, silver birch and oak to its east, south and south west constricting its growth to some extent and perhaps explaining its very confused development. It has several large stems, some more twisted than others, a couple long broken with little wood remaining on the woodland floor. Comparing pictures taken in 2011 and 2023 you can see that a large stem broke thick with small branches has come down. It broke late in 2022 (after the drought, possibly in an early autumn storm). For some time, these dead branches have been replete with dense drying out leaves, looking like a giant shredded blanket – a year later the leaves have gone from those branches, but the twigs and branches still create their own shade. 

Like Oak (tree 13) whilst it clearly shows many ‘ancient’ features, stepping back the canopy is full with now signs of stems ‘dying back’ however heavy the trunk has become. 

Silver Birch (Tree 15), is possibly the oldest silver birch in the woods – not long lived usually, this Silver Birch has a stem of XXXX, is suitably twisted and gnarled, with ancient characteristics such as lichens and mosses. It is quite a characterful tree in its position on the path, guarding as it might the path into the woods propper. That said, there are one or two silver birch hidden amongst the brambles and bracken, typically on the edges of the wood, here to the north and to the south around the edges of the Mire, that may warrant recognition as ‘notable’. 

The only thing that’s changed here is the path, which decided to dodge some branches fallen from a large beech tree we are about to take a look at. 

Pass through into the woods along a twisting and narrow path that turns into a stream in heavy rain (as a few of the paths do) and remain a slippery quagmire for some weeks after rain, we find Beech (tree 16) a mature beech, and also a two stem SIlver Birch (tree 34)  – long dead, with two stems standing until recently – one of these now fallen and smashed into a number of pieces like a piece of broken pottery. More on Silver Birch (tree 34) at the end … for now, 

Beech (Tree 16) is not on the scale of Beech (tree 2). There are around a dozen Beech trees of a similar scale on the Tree Register. Perhaps we have missed a few … perhaps fewer, or more of them should be duly noted. Not much has changed here. Small bits drop off from time to time. 

Beech (tree 17), towards the eastern boundary …. I found this hard to find at first, wandering up and down along the eastern boundary where there are various similar mature beech trees, some with long dead companion hornbeam, others to some degree surrounded by brambles. This tree is mature, a woodland tree with a long stem reaching into the canopy, with evidence of several dropped lower limbs. It is maiden. (Not dissimilar to a beech a little north of Beech 2 which isn’t recognised). There are signs of cinder fungus, which could indicate the beginning of decay. 

It is worth comparing to several other beech trees all of which may justify recognition on the National Tree Register because of the character, age, size and features:

This is often the case with beech in the centre of an established ancient wood, where long stems struggle to maintain their place in the canopy and lower branches when they struggle to get light onto their leaves are lost. After strong wind the woodland floor around here is often littered with branches large and small that have been lost.  

(Beech) Tree 18 is multi-stemmed, it doesn’t look like a coppiced tree, more likely the young beech stem was browsed or broken off and several stems arose. Being in the centre of the wood these long trunks reach into the canopy. This part of the wood there are many beech trees in various states of growth, and collapse. 

(Beech) Tree 19 , is two stemmed from the ground up with one stem somewhat more mature than the other making me think that the second stem was or is a second tree, the two saplings growing so closely together that they have fused into one. As with tree 17 I struggled to pick this out from other trees like it, and eventually matched it to the photograph taken in 2011 – once again, in this area of the woods dominated by beech there are several, indeed many that are similar, some of greater girth and showing more character. 

Beech (Tree 20), on the left (east) of the path heading south,  is somewhat larger, not the beech with the greatest girth in the woods, but probably number two. It sits on the path, lost one stem that fell to the north east some years ago where it hosts a few enormous fungi from time to time. If we were being more selective than this tree would remain on the register, whereas trees 18 and 19 might come off it. 

Tree 21 Beech (maiden), on the right (west) of the path heading north should be thought of as Beech and companion oak, as there is a substantial oak that appears a similar age that has grown alongside the beech and has shared the same earth for a century or two … it curves and falls away to the south, a common trait for an oak companion to a beech, across the woods, where sometimes the oak survives, sometimes not. On the ground the rotten wood is host to fungi such as … while the gonad-like growth in the trunk is one of its self-evident features. 

Tree 22 Hornbeam (pollard) is quite the character, growing in semi-isolation on the southern reaches of the wood, it lost a major limb possibly five to eight years ago which is a wealth of fungi, including a beautiful split gill and xxx). As can be found across the woods, hornbeam will self-layer – great, long branches reaching out like an extraordinarily long fisherman’s rod can come to ground, escape a space from the undergrowth and eventually take route. If this hasn’t quite happened here (yet), it is a characteristic of a couple of the other notable hornbeam nearby 

Here we break the chronology of the tree survey more substantially as we walk east to west along what is an avenue of mature hornbeam trees, some notable, some not, many of a similar generation, mostly competing with each other, some showing significant failure, others appearing to thrive. 

Tree 23, Hornbeam takes us into the southernmost boundary of Markstakes Common. This long fallen mature Hornbeam has kept growing. A companion hornbeam, or one of its own stems, remains standing, while the pollarded part of the tree has blow down from a gale coming in from the prevailing south-west, perhaps it came down in the storm of October 1987, though frankly, it looks as if it could have come down long before that. There are many cases of old, but not so mature, as well as younger hornbeam that have come down across the woods – some have died, some have survived. 

Tree 24, ash, a five stem tree photographed in 2011, now has three stems, one of which is long dead and broken, a second stem appears dead and stands while one stem appears to grow on. Into Starvecrow Wood to the west there is an acre or two of an ash stand where most of the trees appear dead and where several came down in the latest storm blowing down from the north in late 2023. 

Tree 25, Hornbeam, coppiced, remains much as it appeared in 2011 with four or five stems. Outside Markstakes Common, particularly coming in along Balneath Lane into Starvecrow Wood there are several significant further examples of coppiced and layered hornbeam. 

Tree 26, Oak, on the boundary bank of Markstakes Common with Starvecrow Wood, significant as it was coppiced and laid, but entangled in holly and brambles with some dead stems it is something of a odd choice as a notable tree … unless its status comes from its position on the boundary, possibly as a marker tree, and that historically it was coppiced. There are many mature, yet not ancient or notable maiden oaks, and companion oaks, across Markstakes Common. 

Tree 27, Hornbeam, old coppice on the banks of the boundary stream, between the fenced off lawned garden and the woods proper.

Tree 28, Hornbeam, old coppice, since photographed, a gate has appeared in the fence and a small footbridge, if you can call a few plans a bridge, over the stream. It has changed little in 13 years.

Tree 29, Hornbeam, old coppiced, 5-stem 

Tree 30, Beech, old coppice, with three stems in 2011, now only has two stems with the largest of the stems down, dead and decaying. 

Tree 31, Beech maiden, with companion oak (and nearby dead Hornbeam). I put all three trees together here as they tell a collective story which is reflected many times over right across Markstakes Common where each of Beech, Oak or Hornbeam, given different circumstances, can be the tree that dominates, thrives and survives at the expense of companion tree – whether it is of different species (as here) or a different one. Here the oak continues to thrive (for now), it holds the south western aspect and has no competition blocking the sun and is just far enough out of the Beech’s overreaching branches. In many other situations such as this the oak may be a little close to the beech trunk, so much so that at some point, sooner or later, the canopy of the dense beech leaves overshadows the oak and starved of light it dies – there are many such examples around Markstakes common, indeed, in one instance, where younger oak to the south of a beech on the edge of the wood have grown up and failed or are failing once, twice or three times or more. 

Here the hornbeam is worth adding to the picture because it hasn’t been dead long (and isn’t dead entirely). It has taken the beech reaching a certain size to completely dominate the canopy and so kill off any chance of the hornbeam receiving light. 

Tree 32, Hornbeam (pollard) The next two notable trees, and many others around the same area, form part of a grove of hornbeam. Tree 32, when studied closely, appears to form a wooden chalice (up to the point it was pollarded at shoulder height) and though younger, reassembles the veteran Hornbeam (tree 5). The spread of the branches here, as intimate earlier, indicates how much the tree is hoping to self-layer, and indeed, to the north-east that is exactly what a long branch has achieved.

Tree 33, Hornbeam coppice appears to have changed little in a decade, like tree 32, one branch, from one of the stems has reached out far, dangled down to the ground and managed to self layer to the east of the tree (and is still attached).

Silver Birch (Tree 34)  Silver Birch Maiden  Beside footpath. Decaying wood in the crown. Lichens and moss. Dead.