When I worked for the Government, I did some tours of duty in environmental activities. Over the years, I monitored programmes on the health of Honeybees, parks protection in Greenwich’s ancient woodlands, Restoration of the environment in the Olympic site in East London, and several small conservation programmes on security sites for the MOD, where fencing things off from the general public did wonders for the local biodiversity.
In all of that, I learned that data and information are vital. Far too often I heard the comment ‘there’s nothing there!’, often from gentlemen in their fifties whose only interest in nature was how to kill it or cut it down. When I got to a position of some influence, I could slow down or even reverse developments by insisting on a good quality ecological survey before any construction work. Sometimes, this was deeply unpopular as the construction industry usually has little interest in conservation or environmental care…what we see of due diligence by building firms is there because the Law forces them. This will definitely be an issue in Cilfái with the Skyline development. That tourist firm will promise anything in the planning permission stage but quietly ignore it in the building phase, knowing very well that Swansea Council does not have the resources to monitor and enforce anything. We as volunteers will need to monitor the destruction to try and ensure it is kept to the promised minimum.
In December 2022, I prepared the first of a series of ecological protection documents based on my time in Whitehall. The key one is called an Ecological Constraints and Opportunities Plan (ECOP for short). I did one for Cilfái based on what we knew at the time. It proved quite popular and still is, judging from the large number of downloads it still gets from all over the country. Eventually, the ECOP evolved into the second book Cilfái: Woodland Management and Climate Change on Kilvey Hill, Swansea.
I published all my survey notes and plans going back over about ten years of tree and animal survey, including all my work on the Hill. So, the book has an explanation of the data covering the Hill and lists of bats, birds, plants and animals I found or saw presence of. I also included the wonderful observations made by Carl Squires over many years of walking the Hill. I also added some of my Climate Change risk analysis from my time working for UK Parliament.
Below: A mash-up of some of the Cilfái data from my surveys and explorations. It is complex because ecology always is. The red dots are dead or dying trees, the dotted lines and light green stripes are areas for better bird habitat, Yellows and oranges are different types of open land, and darker greens are the Forestry Commission plantation trees. The red lines show the ghost of the coming area of Skyline destruction.
In the early spring of 1941, two people followed in the footsteps of the bomb disposal teams, firefighters and council workers as they worked through the shattered ruins of Swansea’s blitzed town centre. The first was artist Will Evans, who was keen to document the chaos of ruins and the loss of the heart of the town. Evans left a legacy of vivid watercolours that are well-known. However, the other person was naturalist M. H Sykes, who is less well known. Sykes was a member of the Swansea Scientific and Naturalist Society (SSFNS), and she was a competent botanist with a keen eye.
The ’Three Nights’ Blitz’ inflicted grievous damage on Swansea. The air raids and the ensuing fires created over 16 hectares of broken buildings and rubble at the heart of Swansea. It must have been horrendous.
In 1941, across the country, botanists realised that the blitzed landscapes would soon offer a unique opportunity to witness a comparatively rare phenomenon. This was the emergence of ‘spontaneous vegetation’, the pioneer plants that would arise on the broken brick and rubble. The phenomenon was first recorded amongst the ruins of London after the Great Fire in 1666. In 1941, expanses of ruins reappeared in London and blitzed towns such as Swansea along with the newly christened ‘bombsite flora’.
My article on the bombsite floras of Swansea is forthcoming in the next edition of Swansea History Journal published by the Royal Institution of South Wales http://www.risw.org/publications.htm
Coming soon.
Image: Eliot Hodgkin was one of the very few artists attracted to the contrasts between the brutality of the war ruins and the vegetation that covered them. This is an extract from one of his most notable blitz flora studies of ruins at St Paul’s in London in tempera. Hodgkin was a master of detail and captured the shape and form of many of the blitz plants at their best. The original is in the Imperial War Museum collection.
Nigel Robins 