1960s
Danny Howell, writing in June 2024, remembered:
There was, and still is a strip of woodland running alongside the northern edge of Top Park at Bishopstrow. During the 1960s, myself and my childhood friends referred to this strip of woodland as “Beehives Wood”. That wasn’t an official name or recorded name; it was just the name us boys called it. We gave it that name because on the north side of that woodland, between the wood and the private road that connects Big Gates, north of Home Farm, with Cox’s Drove, near Bishopstrow Farm, placed on an area with a stone surface, were a long line of beehives, kept by some bee-farmer whose name is now forgotten. The beehives must have been there with the permission of Bert Legg (who farmed Home Farm). In the 1990s I asked Bert who the beehives and bees belonged to but Bert couldn’t remember. It had completely escaped his memory.
Today there is a narrow roadway through that woodland connecting the private road with the back entrance to Bishopstrow House hotel. It’s near where the Legg family of Home Farm continue to have the dung heap for the farm. The narrow road has a gate. The hotel in recent years has used that back entrance for deliveries, out of sight of hotel guests.
Prior to the road being made through there, there was a fairly large hole or dip in the woodland there, maybe about 10 feet deep, and it was filled with several old tree stumps and the a lopped bough or two. If you were making your way along and through Beehives Wood, east to west or vice versa, you had to skirt round those stumps in the dip, keeping close to the fence. The fence there comprises the old-fashioned railings from Temple’s time. Like I say, it was necessary to skirt round the stumps, rather than try and climb over them, which would have been hard work. There were gaps between the stumps and boughs and you could never be sure your if one of your feet or legs would go down into a gap. If that happened you might hurt yourself. Those stumps were obviously pushed out and the dip filled, and a couple of yards of the railings removed, when the hotel wanted to create the back way into its grounds.
What I do remember about those stumps in that dip was that I saw, on several occasions, during the mid-1960s, a family of weasels there. From a distance, from the private road, you could see them scurrying about. If you approached slowly and quietly you could get a better look. You could see at least four or five weasels sat there or playing about. Of course, if you made a noise or they saw you, they would soon disappear under the stumps or rush off into the undergrowth nearby. They were a delightful sight and I’ve never forgotten seeing them.