Petts Wood

Willett Memorial Sundial, Petts Wood.  October 2015.

Petts Wood is on the borderland between London and the countryside, where suburbia alternates with fields and woods.  Parts of the countryside in this sort of area are only there because they have been saved from development, and this is the case with Petts Wood and the Hawkwood Estate.  Petts Wood is also the name of a suburb just over a railway line.

There are two memorials in Petts Wood the wood.  One is this memorial sundial, which I wrote about four years ago.  Since then, Google Translate has improved.  The Latin inscription ""HORAS NON NUMERO NISI AESTIVAS" now comes out as "Summer hours are not numerically," which almost sounds like part of a real sentence.  There is a leaflet which gives it as "I only tell the summer hours," which is even closer.  Literally, it's more like "I don't tell the time unless it is summer."   It ought to add "And the sun is out," which it wasn't when I took this photo.

Edlmann memorial, Petts Wood.  November 2015

This is the other memorial, the Edlmann Memorial, commemorating the saving and donation of the woodland.  

The woods are full of pathways, mostly through trees and small screams.  There are a few patches of heath.

Heath in Petts Wood.  October 2015

They are at  a lower level than the surrounding woods because the topsoil and leaf litter has been scraped away to expose the natural gravelly underlayer.

This is the wood where we found many interesting fungi in October .. there are still some more fungus photos to come.  

Galerina species.  Petts Wood, 24 October 2015.