Features
Disabled Access The new kissing gate at the Sutton Street entrance includes a special disabled entrance facility for wheelchairs and scooters which works with a RADAR key. Keys can be purchased for £5 from the Deputy Chairman
BWT Children's Maze. The children's maze in memory of loyal Committee Member Frank Manning was finished in July 2009.
Bearsted Adventure Playground for Under 12s. In July 2009 Bearsted Parish Council built the playground, using Section 106 funding of just under £40,000 from Maidstone Borough Council, on land near the main entrance which they have leased from BWT for 25 years.
Seats have been placed in suitable places, and BWT is grateful to English Courtyard Developments Ltd who gave one of them. The bench near Major's Lake was donated by the Bearsted Fayre Committee. Benches cost £200; if you would like to sponsor one please contact Dave Ward
The unique "roller seat," made by John Monk, near the Church Landway entrance.
The Church Landway information board was bought with a donation of £1,750 from the proceeds of the 2006 Bearsted and Thurnham Fair, was unveiled in June 2007 by Patricia Marshall, Chairwoman of the Fair Committee. The unveiling was watched by BWT members, dog walkers, 3 tennis players ... and about 25 rabbits, who were keeping a beady eye on the dogs!
Watercolour paintings on the board in People's Wood depict the leaves, flowers, catkins and fruits of the British native trees planted in the wood; oak, ash, field maple, holly, silver birch, hawthorn, rowan, crabapple, hazel, wild cherry, beech and spindle. BWT are very grateful to the painter, Gillian Barlow, who runs the archive of botanical paintings at the Chelsea Physic Garden, and used to live in Thurham Lane.
Local trees, flowers, birds and insects are illustrated on four smaller boards at strategic points near the paths.
Other boards which are self-explanatory, and plaques under trees, record individual gifts.
Fossils In newsletter No.15, Gareth George explained the interesting fossilised oysters, found in rock known as Kentish ragstone, which have come to light as a result of recent work providing the new paths and the bridge across the Lilk stream. This limestone is composed almost entirely of the remains of an extinct oyster known by its Latin name of Exogyra, a fossil related to Gryphaea (commonly known as "Devil's toenail"). Individual specimens within the bed vary in size from a couple of centimetres to 15 centimetres in length. Some of the shells are in their original life position of flat side up, but others have been moved as a result of strong currents active during the formation of the oyster bank. You can also find occasional remains of other fossils such as the torpedo-shaped belemites or "thunderbolts", shell debris, and burrows left by invertebrates that lived within the sediment. The fossils can be seen in the large blocks of stone on the flat grassy area beside the gentle path down to the bridge, and the best block to examine is behind the tree sponsored by the Lemon family. BWT land here may one day be designated a Regionally Important Geological Site (RIGS), and is it very important that the rocks are left intact and not damaged by any attempts to remove the fossils. And, in the interests of geo-conservation, please do not climb the bank below the outcrop.
