Nettle Wood in Autumn’s Glow

Nettle Hole: Two modest parcels of woodland lie beside Cliff Ridge Wood, gifted to the National Trust in 1991 by Lady Fry for the princely sum of ten pounds¹Nettle Hole Wood, Great Ayton – 1.90ha (4.70 acres). https://national-trust.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=59d0d36e5b3a44ae8cc49fe38d47ffd7. A bargain, one might say, for a place that now looks splendid in autumn, its beech saplings blazing away where once nettles ruled.

Farmers, of course, had little patience for nettles and did their best to banish them, but the medieval herbalists were less hasty. They saw virtue in the sting, brewing their green tormentors into potions for coughs, colic, and whatever else ailed them. Curiously, Latin never bothered with a word for “weed,” recognising, perhaps, that “bad plants” is a matter of opinion. Those early scholars may have been on to something: even the most troublesome growth has its season of grace.

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  Nettle Hole Wood, Great Ayton – 1.90ha (4.70 acres). https://national-trust.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=59d0d36e5b3a44ae8cc49fe38d47ffd7