Friends of Gillfield Wood
We now have a ten minute film of the wood and our activities. We already had a two minute version which was made by two young film-makers for the Sheffield Docfest. They made the film at their own expense with our help and it made the final in its category and was very well received. The grant money from the Woodland Trust enabled us to pay their expenses (£100) to produce a longer version which contains many tree stories. Please see link:
The project, organised by SYBRG with the Friends of Gillfield Wood, is funded by a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund. It places Gillfield Wood (an ancient woodland), Totley Brook (the stream that flows through it) and its setting into a wider historical landscape context to include field boundaries, ancient hedgerows and industrial sites. The project looks at how the woodland and its setting have changed over hundreds of years and the evidence that still exists today. In addition it also delves inside the wood to investigate the unique and remarkable dressed upright stones/ stoneposts which have been placed in and alongside the brook, most probably in the last three hundred years. Investigating these has helped to place this historic site into a wider context of 'water, geology and land-use'. The field survey findings are supported by archival research. A legacy of the project is to develop skills and knowledge within local groups.
SYBRG has placed its own report on the project entitled "Reconstructing Gillfield Wood's Historical Setting". This can be found by clicking on the following link:
The following two reports summarising the findings of the Heritage Lottery Funded Phase 2 project are now available for you to either read or download.
These reports represent the culmination of the joint effort between FOGW and Prof. Ian Rotherham's group from Sheffield Hallam University. They have, however, been produced solely by a small dedicated group of FOGW members and are completely separate from any reports produced by SHU. A considerate amount of effort has gone into both carrying out the surveys and into producing these reports so please do take the time to read these fascinating reports
|
Cranefly News |
Dicranophragma separatum (M. Ackland) |
|
Dipterists Forum Cranefly Recording Scheme For Superfamily Tipuloidea & Families Ptychopteridae & Trichoceridae |
|
|
Newsletter No 31 Editor: John Kramer Sub-editor: John Dobson |
Spring 2016 |
Field Work
Gillfield Wood
Another day-long visit was made to Gillfield Wood, Sheffield (SK30.78, VC 57) with the Sorby Naturalists on 27 Sept 2015. Organised by Derek Bateson, eight people attended and with contributions by Derek Whiteley, Chris Measures and Kevin Walker, we succeeded in adding twelve cranefly species to the list for Gillfield Wood, making a total of 58 craneflies for the site.
By wading in Totley Brook (not Loxley Brook, an error in Issue 30) and sweeping the marginal vegetation 6 species were netted from the family Pediciidae (Hairy-eyed craneflies), 5 of which have aquatic larvae. The habitat of the larvae of Lipsothrix remota (found here in Gillfield Wood) is in the dams of wet twigs that you can see in the photo of a small section of the brook. Autumn woodland species found included Tipula luteipennis, T. confusa and T. staegeri, Erioconopa diuturna, Rhypholophus bifurcata and R. varia.
Bob Warburton's Thesis (1974-75)
Bob wrote his thesis as a Diploma in Environmental Studies through the University of Sheffield. At the time Gillfield Wood was not a mature wood as it is today but had many saplings. The few mature trees were along the northern boundary with more across Totley Brook on the south side. The brook was, as it is now, the boundary for Sheffield City Council and NE Derbyshire (Holmesfield).
Friends of Gillfield Wood were presented with Bob’s typed copy by his wife Gill. This is a wonderful manuscript personally typed (on a typewriter of the day) with photographs, a few maps and other diagrams glued onto appropriate pages. We are now the custodians of his thesis. After discussion we decided to digitise his work which would also make it possible to allow others with a legitimate interest in Gillfield Wood to view it.
I am one of those people with such an interest in his thesis. Bob had sampled the Brook in 5 places as one of his surveys. I re-surveyed these sites in 2018, some 43 years later. It has been my pleasure to take the scanned files, which Kevin Walker kindly did a few years earlier, to extract the text and rescan the photographs, charts, and maps. The final version is now separated into 6 pdf files each focusing on an area of investigation or providing tables of data.
These files remain faithful to Bob's original work with the addition of current scientific names for plants and animals which have undergone change since 1975.
Files may be downloaded and then viewed in Adobe Acrobat. The work may be used by any who will benefit from it but any parts used in other works should acknowledge ' (c) Bob Warburton, Diploma in Environmental Studies, University of Sheffield 1974-5'.
The file names give a clear indication as to the content of each section. Please only view that which you have a specific interest in.
Regards, Paul Hancock (Thesis editor)