Large wooden outdoor sculptures at Lake Vyrnwy and Bala in Wales

 On a recent trip to Wales, I visited Lake Vyrnwy. The lake is actually a reservoir, with a stone dam built in the 1880s holding back the waters...

 and a very striking Gothic-revival 'straining tower', which filters the waters before they are pumped off to supply Liverpool and Merseyside.

The area around the reservoir is now a bird reserve, partly managed by the RSPB. At one end of the lake, overlooked by the dam,  is an interesting sculpture trail showing large wooden artworks by artists from around the world.

Here's one called 'Water is life' by Angela Polglaze from Australia:

 

I also liked this more abstract form; 'Obelisk' by the Norwegian artist Nils Haukeland

 

...as well as 'The Ark of Llanwddyn' by the Welsh artist Irene Brown (Llanwddyn is the name of the village submerged by the waters when the reservoir was built)

 

...and 'Cupboard' by Rosemary Terry, also from Wales.

Some of the sculptures are showing signs of the deterioration that you would expect after twelve or more years of Welsh weather acting on them, but many were still in pretty good shape.

After looking around, we went off to find the tallest tree in England and Wales, which was marked as growing on the side of the lake. We were four years too late! The Douglas fir, which was once 63.7m (208.9ft) high, was badly damaged in a storm and had to be felled. However, the chainsaw carver Simon O'Rourke has sculpted the remaining 50-foot stump into a huge reaching hand, which is situated in a beautiful spot near a small waterfall.

On the other side of the lake were more huge wooden artworks. These picnic benches are huge! They were the scene for a highlight of the trip; feeding chaffinches peanuts from my hand.

Simon O'Rourke also carved some very nice sculptures at the camping site that we stayed at;
Pen y bont, on the outskirts of the small town of Bala. They represent figures from the ancient Welsh tales called the Mabinogion. Apparently he carved them all (the image below shows about half the total number) in about 5 days.

This is Taliesin, the poet and seer:

 

This is the giant Tegid Foel, who was supposed to have lived on an island in the middle of Lake Bala (which is called Llyn Tegid in Welsh):

This is Blodeuedd, who was created from the flowers of meadowsweet, broom and oak by Math and the sorceror Gwydion:

Libby Houston visits my studio to see her portrait carved in relief and to chat about rare plants and Whitebeam trees

Libby Houston is one of the subjects carved into the large oak bench that I've been working on. She has had six books of poetry published as well as being a winner of the prestigious H.H. Bloomer award, which is given by the Linnean society to 'an amateur naturalist who has made an important contribution to biological knowledge'.

It was a bit nerve-wracking for me, as this was the first time that I've actually shown someone a carved portrait that I've done of them. Libby seemed to like it though...Phew!

I've also carved two lines from her poem 'The Trees Dance' onto the tops of the backrests.

Libby looked over the text to be carved about her on a previous visit, which meant that I don't need to worry about any inaccuracies too much! It was great chatting with her about the rare and unusual trees and plants that can be found in the area. One that was mentioned is Spiked Speedwell, which is rare and lives on the rock faces in the Avon Gorge. 

Image from:http://www.ukwildflowers.com/

This plant colonised the area just after the land was stripped bare by the glaciers of the last Ice Age. It is at home on steep rock faces and very thin soils, so survived in the Gorge when other plants and trees took over elsewhere in the area. It is also perennial, so it grows back from the same rootstock every year. 

Libby said that there is debate amongst botanists as to how long these plants can live for and some believe that in favourable conditions, such as in the Gorge, individual plants could be thousands of years old, possibly even 10,000 years. This is impossible to test at the moment as far as I know but if it is true, it would mean that the plant seen now is exactly the same one that started growing next to the retreating ice sheet!

We also chatted about Hutchinsia, a tiny perennial flower that lives its life cycle through the winter to avoid competition from other plants. It starts growing in autumn and flowers in March. By springtime, when everything else begins their season, it is done for the year and dies back.

Image by natterjacktoad from http://www.ispotnature.org/species-dictionaries/uksi/Hornungia%20petraea

Whitebeams are also a bit unusual in the natural world, as they will hybridise with certain other species (such as the Wild Service Tree Sorbus torminalis) and produce fertile offspring. Usually when species interbreed, the offspring are sterile. An example of this would be mules, the result of a horse breeding with a donkey. Nearly all mules cannot produce offspring themselves.

Whitebeams are also often found on steep slopes and thin soils, where they can live without being overshadowed and having to compete for resources with larger trees such as ash, beech or oak. This local high density of population, together with their fertile hybrid offspring, means that they often interbreed and produce new species. There are at least three unique species in the Avon Gorge alone. 

One of the Whitebeam species has possibly my favourite name of any tree. It grows near Watersmeet, on Exmoor in the Southwest of England, and is called the 'No Parking Whitebeam' (Sorbus admonitor). Why the strange name? The first example was found next to a road and had a 'No Parking' sign fixed to it.

Libby also kindly gave me two fallen leaves from a Whitebeam tree that she discovered in the Avon Gorge to copy in a woodcarving on the bench. It is named 'Houston's Whitebeam' after her. There is only one specimen of this kind of tree known to exist, so I suppose it must be one of the rarest trees in the world.

By the way, the piece of dowel next to the leaf on the right is plugging a hole left when I dug some lead shot out of the wood. I wonder how long it had been in there?