More autumn trees! These from a wander through Hirst Woods in the sunshine. The entire wood is carpeted thickly with leaves and beech mast, though there are still plenty of leaves yet to fall.
I enjoy tramping the ancient, hollowed out trackways, strong links to our ancestors who also used these woods. Some worked in the long abandoned mill by the river, some even lived here, in cottages whose broken walls can still be traced. Iron Age Britons may have had a small settlement in the wood, which sits on a glacial moraine; traces of a circular structure have been identified. Charcoal burners had their kilns here. Nowadays, people walk their dogs, children build dens, all manner of wildlife lives in the undergrowth and the trees breathe for us.
It's a wonderful place, and even more so with the sun filtering through the autumn leaves and onto the thick soft carpet.
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