Lymington Community Blog

Project: Transition Lymington



April gave of its best blue skies, warm sun and gently cooling breezes for the Transition Lymington Spring Fair, Priestlands 11-3pm Sat 17 Apr. The 18th century walled garden of Priestlands School was the perfect setting to demonstrate the accessibility of the local provision of food, energy, goods and services with a strong view to a lower carbon society.

Pupils have been generating their own energy, recycling waste, growing vegetables and breeding their own pigs to produce food for the school canteen.

The project is part of the Eco-Schools programme - an international initiative to encourage schools to analyse their operations and become more environmentally sustainable. The food is sold to the school canteen after pupils plucked chickens
and made their own sausages.

The mellow red bricked walled garden was a wonderfully happy place, full of sunshine and smiles. As you walked in, groups of children were identifying then drawing plant leaves, flowers, vegetables and fruit. Other children with coloured packets of Red and Spring Onion seeds were carefully placing one seed at a time into the long shallow trenches they had dug earlier in raised beds, bordered by wooden railway sleepers.

Set against the wall was a small enclosure containing two traditional wooden hives with flowers of many colours planted in front to attract the bees and make honey. Bowing to the wind was a large metal sculptured bee, trembling slightly and making a humming sound whenever the breeze blew harder. Velvety worker bees wandered busily over the nearby flowers gathering pollen then returning to the hive to dance the route to the best pollen bearing flowers to other bees - a good example for the Beekeeping workshop that took place.

Young trees flung new growing branches across the rough brick walls of the walled garden, one day to bear fruit such as peaches and apricots. Pupils of Priestlands School will learn how to plant, maintain and harvest their own produce in a localised environment – without the need for needless pollution or wasted energy resources. More importantly the enjoyment and satisfaction of having achieved it all themselves.

It was a truly wonderful sight to see children confidently holding a contented chicken under one arm and gently stroking the warm coppery feathers. Two boys raised the lids of the wooden nesting boxes to see if any new laid eggs were lying feathery and warm in the freshly scented straw.

These children knew that free-range hens are happier and their eggs not only larger but more tasty. Happy hens, happier children.

A pretty-in-pink-wellied little girl climbed the wooden fence of the large pig enclosure to scratch the skin of a darkly brindled pig, who grunted contentedly in appreciation. An auburn bristled pig with lovely sunshade ears flopping forward over her twinkling eyes shoved the brindled boar out of his comfortably dry, sunny patch of earth into a wet, muddy puddle.

Much in evidence outside the walled garden - on the local edible goods stalls - was the deep blue and silver of The New Forest Marque, awarded to Quality Produce reared, caught, grown or produced in the historic landscape of the New Forest. Transition Lymington has been working to launch The New Forest Food Challenge – asking people to grow and eat more local produce in order to reduce the distance our food travels. This increases the human, environmental and financial benefits of living within our means.

Produce stalls such as Spice‘n’Easy were in popular demand for Chutneys, Relishes, Curry pastes, Sauces, Salad Dressings and Marinades; all ingredients grown, cooked and available from local farms, shops and via the Internet.

New Forest Beef, Pannage* Pork and Venison were also represented in the wonderful and various products from ‘Pondhead Farm’ near Lyndhurst. Sausages of Pork and Apple, Beef and Mustard, Chilli and Beef sold very well, vying with the most beautiful of golden pastry products – perfectly round pies straight from ‘Brambly Hedge’.

Appropriately enough for a Hampshire* venue, was the very popular and most delicious, succulent ‘Hog-Roast’. The beautifully flavoured pork was sourced from locally reared New Forest pigs and the sharp, lovely apple sauce from Forest orchard apples.

Amongst the stalls an electric micro-car transported fair-goers around the grounds of Priestlands School, illustrating the use of inexpensive electricity for cleaner transport solutions – without polluting the atmosphere.

Close to the entrance to the Spring Fair was a tall Storytelling tepee, that held Steph Bradley; who walked all the way from Transition Towns Totnes in Devon using green lanes; and Taprisha. Her big interest is in the stories we believe, and how they impact on our relationship with others, and our environment. Taprisha told us the apple cake tale, and Steph the mythic tale of Wynn Alice's long walk and arrival at a fair where she asks the local children about ‘the wondrous things that are happening in the town that is not too big and not too small with a river running through it and a steep hill with a church at the top.’

Steph presented the beautiful whorl, spindle, and skein of local dyed wool from transition Wimborne Minster to Transition New Forest and they gave her a pack of their seeds and the information to start a Transition Food Challenge to take on to the next place.

The background to all the activities of the Fair was a low, tribal, almost primeval sound from tubular drums – a very popular activity with warrior-face-painted children reminiscent of Lord of the Flies.

Thoughtful and beautiful jewellery was exhibited from silver pendants imprinted with your child’s fingerprint to vintage large button necklaces. Pottery penguins in trios or star gazing velvety mice doorstops vied with colourful ceramic plates and bowls, to be taken home.

Wood turners demonstrated their craft, producing spiral chair back spindles, perfect wood-fragrant boxes and tiny lidded pots from the smallest of off cuts so nothing is wasted. The sawdust and wood chips were used later for smoking fish, chicken and cheese in a small portable food smoker; the type of wood deciding the flavour, such as Oak or Hickory. A true gardeners' community where seeds and advice are freely given was very active in the seed and plant swopping events where keen growers can meet to exchange seeds, plants and advice. This enables more gardeners in the local community to expand the varieties of the plants they grow and to bolster supplies in times of shortage. ‘Grow your own veg’ was the war cry from the savage garden.

Transition Lymington & New Forest Transition were more than welcoming and keen to exchange information on their experiences in order to encourage others to work towards a more sustainable SO41. There could not have been a more peaceful, and purposeful place than the walled garden at the Spring Fair.

* Pannage Pork is from domestic pigs turned out onto the New Forest in September for not less than 60 days to eat the acorns, beechmast, chestnuts, crab apples etc that are poisonous to Cattle and Ponies.
*A person born within Hampshire is referred to as a ‘Hampshire Hog’- usually by ‘Forenyers’ from without the county boundaries - but a name celebrated by us Hogs.