Winter 2018 – Spring 2019

A long gap since the last newsletter, but it has been a very quiet winter period and things have only started to kick off again in recent weeks.

Thanks once more to the Chesterton Community group for organising a litter pick in April around the complex and surrounding areas. Nice to see the involvement of a group of kids this time round as well, including a team from the 1st Cirencester Beavers.

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Obelisk

Up until around the middle of April, the beds were still looking pretty good as a result of all the work put in last year. However, with the brilliant Easter weather, followed by rain, the rate of growth of things we don’t want to grow has been scary, and we urgently need to get on top of things again. It was unfortunate that our first work party of the year had to be cancelled due to heavy rain, as was a planned session by a team from St James’s Place. Our work parties this year will mainly focus on the obelisk area, (see later in this newsletter for more detail) and we really need all the support you can give to keep this site looking the way it should.

Amphitheatre

We’ve been talking about the toposcope for a long time and we are really pleased to advise that the building of the benches and the support plinth for the main plaque is nearing completion. When it is all ready, we are hoping to arrange a suitable unveiling ceremony – we’ll keep you informed. The actual plaque is 1 metre in diameter and is basically a map of England showing Corinium in relation to the other Roman settlements around the country. This will be a wonderful addition to the site – something to be proud of.

We are seriously looking at the possibility of an open air theatre event during 2020. The logistics of the site are by no means ideal and a significant financial commitment needs to be made, but we will continue to explore what might be done.

Querns Wood

We do have a wonderful variety of flora and fauna in the woods, examples of which have been shown in previous newsletters. This time it is the turn of the lesser celandine. For some of us, this is the marmite of the flower world – love it or hate it – as it can very easily start to take over your garden, but it is one of the many colourful indicators of spring.

Four Acre Field

Last year we repeated the sowing of wild flower seed along most of the eastern border but this finally proved to be impractical to maintain to any reasonable degree – the brambles, nettles, goose grass and various other things did a good job of swamping everything else. So this year we have set ourselves a more realistic objective by creating 6 separate flower beds. As always, a group of kids from Chesterton Primary came along to carry out the sowing – there were 41 of them in all, quite a wonderful turnout.

Also, you may have seen the installation of a WW1 memorial bench on the Chesterton Lane side which was paid for by two of our local councillors pooling a grant they had each been given to commemorate in some way the 100th anniversary of the end of the war.

All being well, we will again be arranging events for the first day of Love Parks Week (Friday 26 July) and it seems that ALDI are once more keen to take on Tesco at a sport still to be decided.

Volunteer programme

Work parties are planned for the first Tuesday of every month, from 18.00 to 20.00, up to and including September 2019. Details will be emailed prior to the event each month, but please give us some time if you possibly can.

Visitor counts

Thanks to everyone who put their names down for the April and May counts. Further sessions will take place during July and August, details to follow nearer the time. Please help out if you can.

Communication

Apart from this newsletter, you can find information and photos on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FriendsOfAmphitheatre

See also the notice board at the entrance from Chesterton Lane into 4 Acre Field.

If you would like any more detail, please contact our secretary, Alison, at aqivasec@gmail.com.

If you have friends, family, neighbours or anyone who might be interested in learning more about what is going on, please pass on our contact details.