Marlow Common (which includes an area of woodland known as Pullingshill Wood) is a 68 acre site that is situated 2 miles to the West of Marlow in the Chiltern Hills AONB (Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty). Much of the woodland is also designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) and a Chiltern Beechwoods Special Area of Conservation (SAC) for its rich and diverse ground flora. The site is dominated by mature beech and oak on the flat plateau, with some birch. As the ground slopes down on the west and south sides, the wood contains greater concentrations of other species such as ash, field maple and cherry.
There is a large amount of woodland archaeology present including dells, wood-banks and most remarkably, a series of training trenches that were created in World War One. The dug trenches stretch for over 1400 metres and are known to be the best and most complete set of WW1 training trenches in the UK.
The scene in the photograph is the lane that separates the main part of Marlow Common from Pullingshill Wood, and is probably my favourite country lane in the Chilterns with its majestic canopy of beech trees, which always make me think of the nave of a great cathedral such as Salisbury or Winchester. The way the trees form their canopy also reminds me of some the paintings of the late Eric Ravilious, and especially of the contemporary artist Simon Palmer.
This photograph is an HDR composite of 5 stacked images, rather like the photograph for September’s Image of the Month. The photographs were taken on a misty and overcast Sunday in October just as the leaves had started to turn. The slightly ‘flared’ appearance of the tree canopy in the HDR image is not a deliberate manipulation of the image as a result of post-processing or the HDR method – the mist was slowly dissipating under the very bright late afternoon sun shining through the leaves of the upper canopy, and I assume was caused by the light being ‘bounced around’ by the fine water particles of the mist.
Being beech, the leaves were an incredible golden-yellow and the colour images were quite intense, but conversion to monochrome accentuates the misty atmosphere, giving this incredible canopy of beech an ethereal almost mystical and slightly eerie look. In Spring, the new leaf buds are an intense bright light green, and in Autumn, they can range from a bright golden-yellow to a deep crimson – unbelievably bright colours when caught by the early morning sun.