Notes from a spring walk

I took another walk along old tracks and bridleways around the village of Tong in south Bradford. It was one of those strange April days of bright sunshine and blue skies interspersed with sudden sharp snow showers that came as quickly as they went, blown along by a strong breeze.  During the sunny bits it was lovely, the hedgerows alive with early white blossom (blackthorn? plum?), with celandines and wood anemones dotting the grass (albeit mostly with their flowers closed against the cold). Young wild garlic leaves were thrusting up too, and the pungent scent was already discernible even though there were no flowers yet. 

I noticed several trees that had been coppiced: cut periodically and left to regrow from the stump (stool). They usually regrow with multiple stems, like the one above right. Coppicing was common at one time, when there was a high demand for wood for fuel, charcoal, building, fence poles, furniture and other items. It is still carried out in some woodlands, to manage them as a wildlife habitat, but many old coppices have been left to deteriorate.

Many of the tracks had a stone-paved central path, one sign of an ancient packhorse route. Another of the tracks was eroded enough in parts to be almost a holloway - a sunken lane, obviously very old and well used in the past.