WE DECIDED on a really local walk whilst the sun shone and so went to see the Horsell Common SANG, which is almost at the bottom of my garden.

Indeed, the ditch, which is the boundary of my garden, leads to the SANG, established on an area my daughters and I have known for a long time.

Now the Dutch branch of the family, which had not witnessed the growing of the SANG, were amazed and delighted by the beauty of it.

A SANG is a Suitable Alternative Natural Greenspace, aimed at diverting people from environmentally sensitive heathland and cared for with money provided by developers. The area we had all played on for years is now unrecognisable. 

My father told me how he had helped lay the path between the Wheatsheaf Green and Woodham Rise with neat ditches on either side to keep it drained. My mother used that track when taking me to school on the back of her bike.

But the terrible winter of 1947 had heavy snow weighing down the gorse bushes, so they blocked the track.

People found a way around by hopping over the little culverts. They soon became damaged and blocked while the main path remained closed, and the old route became circuitous around the gorse chicane.

I had, for some years, mentioned this to the Horsell Common Preservation Society (HCPS), pointing out that the course was still used but now flooded with even a little rain. HCPS were spending all their time, it seemed to me, with “accessible” paths and general prettifying around the popular area of the sandpits.

Well, that old path is now reinstated – with a vengeance and gravel. It still goes from the Wheatsheaf to Woodham Rise, but the scenery around it has radically changed.

And for the better, although readers may recall my report of trying to get around the area and having my boots dragged off by the deep mud.

Now, even after all the recent rain, it is beginning to look beautiful. At first there were complaints that trees had to be felled. Harvested would, perhaps, have been a better word. HCPS wastes nothing it takes from the common and uses wood to fire its boiler at Heather Farm.

The ancient ditch at the bottom of my garden now runs into one of the three ponds and exits on the southern side to run under the A320, and then, a little further on, under the Basingstoke Canal.

Tributaries of the ditch also enter the ponds, which have gently sloping sides and are, in places, quite deep.

It is known as the Rive Ditch, which I understand to mean “ditch ditch”, with rive a cutting, a split, a broken bank or cliff.

There is discussion as to the pronunciation:  reeve or rive, as in arrive. I prefer the former so that I may boast that I live on the Rive Gauche, as in that area of Paris famous for its association with artists, writers and philosophers.

There are a couple of bridges over the Rive Ponds, and walkways should prevent the previous flooding of the paths.

The only annoyance currently is the noise from the A320, but there is planting to come which will help baffle the sound.

When HCPS, Surrey County Council and Woking Borough Council have all completed their work, Mother Nature will step in and finish the job. In a matter of months we will become used to it, as will the flora and fauna.  

There used to be strange parallel furrows which the Woking History Society reckoned were probably caused by chest ploughs used by the navvies working on the canal to excavate peat for their cooking fires. I wonder if they have now all disappeared.

I must check, but the scenery has changed so much I may have difficulty in locating their whereabouts – or past whereabouts.  Well done, HCPS, SCC and WBC. This is good and it will surely do what it is supposed to do: alleviate local flooding.

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