Ingham’s W RLD
WALKING over the North Downs last weekend while the first redwings flitted in from Scandinavia, it was hard not to feel lucky, very lucky. From the National Trust’s Emmetts Garden near Sevenoaks, Kent, views stretched for miles over the autumn-tinged High and Low Weald and on to the South Downs, while at the same time our walk revealed the ingenuity of man.
The 100-year-old ram pump uses the weight of water tumbling down the escarpment to pump it 250ft back up to the top to water the vast gardens – all without the use of electricity. Heaven knows how.
We are lucky in Britain not only that we have such a wealth of history from cavemen to Concorde but also that so many people work so hard to preserve it.
Yet all is not well. Historic England’s latest Heritage At Risk Register yesterday said 5,341 of our protected sites – listed buildings, battlefields, scheduled monuments, shipwrecks and the like – are classed as at risk. The cost of repairing many of them is greater than their value once restored.
They include Lord Snowdon’s huge walk-through aviary at London Zoo, revolutionary when it opened in 1965 but now in need of repair. There’s Hull’s cathedrallike Holy Trinity Church which after more than 700 years is beginning to show its age.
Also needing help are two Tudor piles: fire-ravaged Wythenshawe Hall in Greater Manchester and West Horsley Place in Surrey which broadcaster Bamber Gascoigne is battling to save.
The list even includes treasures we cannot see. Off the coast at Dunwich in Suffolk is the sunken wreck of a 16th-century armed merchantman which got put on the risk register after a bronze cannon was stolen.
This wreck is Dunwich to a tee. In the Middle Ages it was one of England’s busiest ports but it’s now a sleepy hamlet. Erosion has steadily washed away the bustling port, leaving only the skeleton of a Franciscan priory clinging to the crumbling clifftops.
Happily many sites have hope thanks to the Heritage Lottery Fund and the dedication of supporters. Of course, if the Dunwich wreck vanished along with Portsmouth’s 19th-century lookout against the French, Fort Purbrook, the world would not end.
But we would all be the poorer. Protecting our heritage lets us stay in touch with our roots. It keeps alive the memory of remarkable men and women who would otherwise evaporate into the wastelands of the past. The world would then be much duller. And we would all be the losers. FOR football aggro read flamingo aggro. Flamingos at the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust’s Gloucestershire HQ have for the first time been seen deliberately barging other birds out of the way. One victim was fast asleep on one leg before being sent flying. Exeter University researcher Paul Rose said: “The flamingos are acting like kids in a playground.” MOONSHADOWS are disappearing from huge swathes of the world due to light pollution, says a Spanish study. On clear and moonless nights, reports the Royal Society’s Open Science, urban skies are up to 23 times brighter than in nature. Clouds multiply the effect 25-fold. Even rural areas far from the bright lights of the city are affected. And changes in moonlight are now “practically lost” in towns. GREEN TIP: Laptops are usually more energy efficient than desktop computers. THIRTY years after a global ban on whaling, the International Whaling Commission gathered for a crunch meeting yesterday in Slovenia. And guess what a Japanese firm is doing? It’s selling whalemeat on the internet, with worldwide shipping available, says the UK’s Whale and Dolphin Conservation. FEELING down in the dumps? I hate to sound like your mum but get outside. Green exercise such as walking, running or cycling in parks or the countryside could be the cure. An Exeter University study in the journal Preventive Medicine says it could save the NHS £2.2billion a year by boosting mental and physical health.