February 2025 newsletter part one

1. Welcome to February’s newsletter. Am sure 2025 will be as busy as last year with the continuing renovation of our Shed. We are currently investigating grant funding for the external cladding and also await a decision on the roofing before we can go ahead with the covered area of the recreation area. A big thank you to those members who came in to brighten up the workshops with new paint and storageshelving. It really looks good and I’m sure the workbenches are now crying out for new projects. Charlie Farnes appears to have already started! We have a couple of community projects in the pipeline. They really are two extremes to be more accurate. The first is to manufacture a missing wooden jigsaw piece. We have the shape and size of the missing piece of a jigsaw of sentimental value. The second is a book lending library for Denmead. John Skerratt, Dave Sy and myself visited the lady last year and she has given us her ideas and plans of what she hopes we can achieve. So we are really are diverse with what we can achieve within the skills of Shed members.

2. Friday 10th January saw our first monthly BBQ. Yes it was cold outside, however we all enjoyed a burger and sausage in a bun thanks to John and Paul. We had the added bonus of being able to share a slice of the WMS birthday cake. A big thanks to Pat, Paul’s wife, for the baking. I gather the professional hands of Paul expertly placed the blue ribbon around it. It was really tasty with a beautiful decoration. It was such shame to put a knife to it. It was much appreciated by all though. Looking at the photo it is a rare to see so many of the Cowplain ‘Yard’ gang together !!

3. You may have seen my email in November about possible disruption at the Padnell Road/London Road junction for the felling of the two trees in the area of the bungalows and Age Concern. It was a real shame to see these old trees felled, as they had become a stunning feature as you turned in to Padnell Road. They were reckoned to be between 280 and 300 years old. Which means they could have been planted 81 years before the Battle of Trafalgar and King George 1st was on the throne. Most of the land in that area was forest, and records show that a turnpike road was built through the forest from Portsdown Hill and Horndean in 1711. In 1810 the forest was divided in to plots and sold for building. The name Cowplain is believed to get its name from the ‘Spotted Cow’ pub. The pub first appeared on maps in the 1860’s. The original public house’ is featured in a map dated 1867. Locals then called the area around the pub Cow plain. In those days ‘plain’ meant any stretch of open land not necessarily a large stretch. The original pub was demolished in 1936 and the pub we know today built in its’ place. More houses were built in Cowplain and by the late 19th century it had become a thriving little village. So our two ‘arbores’ have witnessed much of Cowplain’s history. If only they could talk. It reminds me of the hit song of the ‘Ink Spots’, ‘Whispering Grass’, about telling the ‘blabbering trees’ rerecorded by Don Estelle and Windsor Davies in 1975.