Although we hear constant references to climate change, we don’t always see those changes around us. As a lad during the late 1950’s the cold war between Russia and the West was at its height, so any severe weather patterns were satirically blamed on the Russians. I was too young to recognise seasonal changes in the weather and birds such as skylarks, lapwings and song thrushes were plentiful. I was reminded of this on the 3 April when I strolled through the Urban Nature garden on St Ann’s Allotments for the first time in many months. The wildflower meadows were at their best, with primroses and snakes head fritillaries in abundance. However, what stood out was a single clump of cowslips growing on the bank in the Jurassic plot above the harts–tongue ferns. That one clump reminded me of the fields of cowslips I saw in the 1950’s. They’re now long gone as a result of urban development and herbicides, but did climate change play a part?
As I say, I saw the Urban Nature cowslips on the 3 April, whereas the celebratory Cowslip Sunday used to be held on the first Sunday in May. Mr Bosworth in his letter to the Nottingham Evening Post of 23 March 1943 recalled this community event, starting with a climb up Donkey Hill (now St. Bartholomew’s Road):
A steep and narrow uneven gradient was old Donkey Hill, starting from St. Ann’s Well-road to the Old Padrow Wheat Fields. The old St. Bartholomew stile was a landmark which led the way to the fields and one way to Gedling and Lambley Dumbles, as it was called. Cowslip Sunday was for years a hardy annual, falling in May, when people from different parts of the town used to make pilgrimage to collect the flowers. Cowslip wine was much thought of in those times. Over the Pad fields was a pleasant walk, and from one of the rising fields you could on a clear day have a glorious view of the surrounding country for miles. …..At a little cottage half-way up the hill the tenant of that house used to make good herb and ginger beer, and was much appreciated, as were the old Eccles cakes which were always in good demand by us youngsters.
Hopefully, Mr Bosworth’s recollections did not include the event at Lambley in 1878 when “as early as five o’clock on Sunday morning large numbers of “roughs,” chiefly from Nottingham, commenced to pour into the village. As the day wore on the numbers were considerably increased by persons more bent on rowdyism than on the object of gathering cowslips. During the day several raids were made upon the property of some of the inhabitants by the breaking of fences, hedges, etc., so that the services of the police were frequently called….”
On the 9 May,1925 the Midland Red bus service in Birmingham was advertising a Cowslip Sunday day trip which, nearly 100 years later, might have attracted the more genteel folks of St. Ann’s allotments rather than the “roughs” of Nottingham:
IN THE WOODLANDS the Trees have put on their new green canopies and the Hawthorns in the hedgerows look delightfully fresh.
IN THE MEADOWS the Cowslips are making a fine show, and Primroses can still be gathered from shady banks
IN THE ORCHARDS the Fruit Trees are a wonderful sight, for the Cherry Blossom is now as beautiful as ever.
ON THE HILLS the Golden Gorse can be seen, and with the Bird Song at its zenith can you wonder that Nature calls you to partake of the pleasures of Spring?
Urban Nature could be said to be a mirror image of the attractive advertisement offered by Midland Red, albeit one month earlier. Climate change or a seasonal hiccup?
