Many thanks to all the Friends of Montefiore Woodland for their help on Sunday 14th April be it: dead-hedging, litter picking, seed sowing, protective meadow fencing, sapling planting to name a few…..

The first spring migrant was heard in the woodland for this year, a Chiffchaff and despite the wind, even the first butterfly, a Comma, was spotted! Hopefully, this will be just the start of many visiting insects and birds! Watch the website for more sightings! http://montefiorewoodland.org.uk/surveys.php

At last the younger members were able to enjoy planting several saplings (following the postponement of this activity as a result of the very cold March we have recently experienced.) Hopefully these will flourish and be a memory for them in the years to come when they visit the Woodland possibly as adults with their own families…..

The Wildflower Meadow is really taking shape. It was just such a pity more of us couldn’t be involved sowing the seed with the strong wind! However, as soon as the wind dropped the remaining seed was broadcast. Hopefully, we will now have sufficient rain and warm sunshine to aid germination! I look forward to seeing the result of all our efforts later in the year! I’m sure it will bring pleasure to many in the community! Not to mention bees, butterflies, moths and other insects!

We hope to hold several activities and events throughout the summer and details of these will be advertised on our website: http://montefiorewoodland.org.uk/activities.php

Since the Autumn, occasional work parties have continued to improve the Montefiore Woodland. Footpaths have been better delineated, and bark chippings (a skipful of which were donated by Brazil Brothers, for which many thanks), have begun to be laid along them. Members have sponsored Bird and Bat boxes and these have been installed in various locations throughout the Woodland. Activity in these will be monitored and recorded and eventually uploaded to the ‘Surveys’ section of our website: www.montefiorewoodland.org.uk

The clearing has really opened up since we removed the bramble tops, and now there is the demanding task of removing bramble roots and runners. This could be an on-going battle, but by the time you read this we hope to have had the use of a mini-digger, kindly loaned by Jewsons (Friends of Montefiore Woodland can also get a 50% discount on tool hire from the same firm).

Using the mini-digger will also help to remove the top few inches of rich soil, as wildflower seed grows best in low quality soil.

The accumulated leaf litter from many years will have made this top layer very rich, and this will only help to encourage the growth of coarse grass, which could smother the wild flowers. By creating a wildflower meadow we should attract even more butterflies, bees and other insects.

Large amounts of invasive Ivy has been removed from trees along the boundaries and work has also begun on the thinning of the woodland glade, thus opening up the canopy in order to allow light to penetrate, and hopefully encouraging the growth of more varied plant species. This will be a demanding seasonal task in the years to come, but it is our intention to retain and improve this area as a woodland glade. Across the site there has been a fair amount of casual vandalism in the past, with at least two mature trees being set on fire. The charred Holly tree was originally presumed dead, but shoots have appeared and the damaged limbs removed – hopefully assisting growth.

While cutting back the bramble patch a tiny Fig tree was found, and several other species of tree have been discovered, including Field Maple and Oak saplings. In January we learned that we had been successful in our application for a Woodland Trust Community Tree Pack – a small copse of 30 saplings: Silver Birch, Wild Cherry and Rowan Trees. We hope to take delivery of these in March, and to have planted them by the end of that month.

The Friends have been approached by a local Montessori Pre-School to use the Woodland for ‘Forest School’ activities, and the Head Teacher and some parents have joined us for work parties. ‘Forest School’ is a process whereby children and young people (and even adults!), can gain hands-on learning experiences in a local woodland environment, and this group hopes to start using the woodland twice a week from April.

As you may know (see About Ramsgate Autumn 2012), the present Woodland was previously the site of the Judith Lady Montefiore College, which was demolished in 1961. Apart from a coat of arms, now on the wall of the synagogue, and some lintel stones in the mausoleum, all that remains of the college is the fine flint and red brick boundary wall which runs beside the public footpath.

We are hoping to renovate the wall – possibly with money from the Heritage Lottery Fund – and in this we are fortunate to have the expert help and advice of Robert Holden MICWCI (retd), a craftsman in brick and flint (and, of course, Editor of this magazine). We are also trying to raise funds so that the Woodland can have one of those excellent new Information Boards which the Ramsgate Society has placed elsewhere around the town.

The Friends will continue to support all national butterfly counts and surveys, including Save Our Butterflies Week and the Big Butterfly Count, as and when these dates are announced. There will be a Moth Evening and Bat Walk at the Woodland at 8.00pm on Saturday 10th August, with David Gardner of Butterfly Conservation and Shirley Thompson of the Kent Bat Group. This will be during the period of National Moth Nights. In the Autumn we hope to hold a work party to coincide with the Conservation Volunteers’ Big Green Weekend across the UK and Europe.

Membership of the Friends of Montefiore Woodland is free, and new supporters are always welcome.

All in all we have come a long way, considering we only started as a small group of volunteers in February last year!

One of our members, David Rumsey, recently wrote an article “If you go down to the woods….” for the Autumn, 2012 Ramsgate Society magazine about the history of Montefiore Woodland and the work of the Friends of Montefiore Woodland.

Kathleen Hood read the article in Texas, USA and as a result contacted us with her memories of the area via our website.

Her Grandparents, Albert and Kate (Kathleen) Williamson lived in Winifred Villas (Photo)

Read the full story of her memories……

I live in Fort Worth Texas; however, I was born and raised in Ramsgate, went to school at Clarendon House and came to USA in 1958.   I came across your site in the Ramsgate Society autumn 2012 edition.  My twin sister lived in George VI lodge for several years, her house was part of the stable originally.  I know this area well, my grandparents lived in a semi-detached house,  (cottage) no electricity or bathroom, outside toilet – on Honeysuckle Rd – after walking down the winding lane past the synagogue, just off Hereson Rd.   We moved to Broadstairs in 1942.  The mausoleum always scared me.   The views of the houses are all so familiar – as though I’d been there yesterday.

We went to infant school at Hereson (I know, gone now) for a few months when we lived there at age five, until we moved to Broadstairs.  Honeysuckle Road only has one semi-detached 2-storey house (cottage) on it and I do not remember the number.  Mr. and Mrs. Parker lived on one side, and Nan and Grandad lived on the other.  The Parker’s side has an alleyway alongside it and was used by the trash men, and many of the yards belonging to houses on Hereson backed up on it.  Nan’s house had clearance alongside.  The property was bought some years ago and remodelled.  A long, narrow bedroom was converted to a bathroom.  I believe the outside WC and the inside pantry spaces (complete with mesh door on a meat safe) which were back to back, were incorporated into the kitchen space.  Turn left out their front door and up you head up to the mausoleum.   I have often wondered if the horseshoe is still over the back door.  I have never been inside, but I think my mother was asked in years ago, after all she and 3 brothers grew up there.  Mum and Dad had electricity installed about 1959 I’m guessing.

Our Mum died in 2007 at 91 and I came home in October for probably the last time.  Sadly, my health will no longer allow me to travel because I need 24-hour oxygen, which doesn’t particularly slow me down, but an international flight is something else. What you’re doing as a group so appeals to me and wish I could be there helping.

Kathleen Hood

One of our members found this out which I forwarded to Kathleen in Texas: 

I have attached a photo of Winifred villas. The “cottages” your e-mail from America refers to.

The two houses are 11 and 13 Honeysuckle Road and they still have the name Winifred Villas on them.

The Kelly’s Directory, that I have information from, gives the occupants in 1967 as11: William Godfrey Parker and

13: Albert Williamson. In the 1929 directory at number 1 Winifred Villas William Parker and number 2 Albert Williamson. So both families lived there a long time. By 1936 the numbers 11 and 13 were being used (same occupants)

There was a Winifred Cottage on this site, mentioned in the 1883 Kelly’s Directory.

The current pair of houses were not on the 1907 map. I guess they were built soon after.

Kathleen’s reaction:

I cannot tell you how pleased I am to receive this information and photographs. My grandparents were Albert and Kate (Kathleen) Williamson.  Nan lived there until 1970 – 82, and Grandad until 1976 – 88.   I recall now Winifred Villas – should have mentioned it.  The outside is the same except for the white wash trim and new windows in both houses, and Nan kept a pretty front yard, small as it is.  The iron railings were donated to the war effort as were many others; the gate squeaked alarmingly which I happened to like, and I was mad at Nan when she greased it!  Nan was the halfway point between school and home in Broadstairs and she always just happened to have something to eat because we were always starving.

One charming feature I must mention, the coal cellar was inside the house so the coalman had to lug those cwt. sacks in on his back through the passage into the back ‘parlour’ to dump it.  It must have been the space under the stairs that had been dug out for more depth because there was a step down.  The gas lights, no hot water, tin bath in the kitchen (a small tub on the table for little kids always in fear of sticking to the flypaper………..)  The good old days?  Memories anyway because the last time I stepped in there was in 1958 to say goodbye before starting my travels.

Thank you and your friend for her help, I know more now than when we lived there so long ago.

There were allotments alongside #13, and then a huge, beautiful house that I was told was “The Manse.”   Whether or not it actually was a manse I don’t know and for some reason it was demolished many years ago.  It sat back off Hereson Rd approximately at the same level as The Honeysuckle on the other side.

If you have any memories or stories of the area you wish to share with us, please contact us: montefiorewoodland@gmail.com

In April 2011 Thanet District Council handed over the area known as the Montefiore Woodland in Dumpton Park Drive to the Ramsgate Town Council, to own and to manage it “in the wider public interest”. Largely thanks to the enthusiastic support of two local Councillors, a group of conservation volunteers was formed to look after it, and ‘The Friends of Montefiore Woodland’ held their first Open Meeting in February 2012.

The main aim of the Friends is to maintain and improve this natural woodland area – the only one of its kind in urban Ramsgate, and home to parakeets, foxes and hedgehogs – in order to conserve the habitat and wildlife, and encourage its responsible use by members of the local community. They also hope to persuade local residents to take an active role in the group’s activities – in line with the ‘Well Being’ programme of the Montefiore Medical Centre next door – and to promote an awareness of the history of the Woodland.

In fact, this particular piece of woodland has a very interesting history. The Victorian Jewish philanthropist Moses Montefiore (Sir Moses Montefiore Bt as he was later to become), purchased East Cliff Lodge (situated in what is now King George VI Park), in 1831, and in gratitude for a safe return from his first visit to the Holy Land he promised that he “…would build a small but handsome synagogue”. He therefore bought a piece of land nearby on which to build this, and it still stands, now a Grade II* Listed Building. The architect was his cousin, David Mocatta, best known as the architect of the stations and viaducts on the London- Brighton line, including Brighton station itself.   Although there are much older synagogues, this is probably the first one in this country to be built by a Jewish architect.

In 1862 his beloved wife, Lady Judith Montefiore, died, and soon afterwards Sir Moses bought five acres of land next to the synagogue on which to build a memorial theological college to his late wife. The foundation stone of the Judith Lady Montefiore College was laid in 1865, and it was built by the Jewish architectural partnership of Henry Davis and Barrow Emanuel. The college was arranged in a crescent and built in mock-Tudor style with a red brick facade. Sir Moses had intended that the college should house ten elderly scholars, learned in the Law, but it became increasingly difficult – particularly after his death in 1885, at the age of 100 – to find anyone willing to follow the rigorous regime which he had specified. For this reason the college went through many phases over the years, mainly as a training establishment. Apart from boundary walls, it was completely demolished in 1961, and part of of the site became what is now the Woodland. The stone heraldic arms were removed and placed on the wall of the synagogue, near the mausoleum which contains the remains of Sir Moses and Lady Judith. However, the name does live on: the Judith Lady Montefiore College, having moved to London, was reopened in 2005 as a centre for higher Torah education, and occupies buildings attached to the Spanish and Portuguese Jews’ synagogue in Maida Vale. It now trains future rabbis for the Anglo-Jewish community.

In the Montefiore Woodland the Friends have already organised two well supported clean-up sessions collecting rubbish, a Butterfly Day and a Moth Evening. Members of the local community who regularly visit the Woodland are noticing the difference, and starting to lend a hand. A work session, clearing paths of rapidly encroaching bramble and Field Bindweed, was held on 21 July. This was combined with a butterfly count in support of the Butterfly Conservation’s ‘Big Butterfly Count 2012’. It was one of the few sunny days in a mainly wet and cool July, so it was ideal for butterfly spotting. This summer has been particularly poor for butterflies, but that afternoon the Friends had their first-ever sighting of a Marbled White in the Woodland. In total nine species were seen: Marbled White, Holly Blue, Small and Large White, Meadow Brown, Gatekeeper, Comma and Speckled Wood; also a Silver Y Moth.

The main volunteer working parties will be held from October onwards. Activity has been deliberately kept to a minimum during the summer months in order to reduce the disturbance to wildlife. A major project for the autumn/winter will be the proposed removal of a large expanse of ancient bramble which has now encroached onto the clearing. The aim is to develop this sunny aspect into a wildflower meadow, thus ensuring a valuable habitat for   bees, butterflies and other insects.

There is no charge for membership of the Friends of Montefiore Woodland, and new volunteers are always welcome: montefiorewoodland@gmail.com or by post to The Secretary, Friends of Montefiore Woodland, c/o The Custom House, Harbour Parade, Ramsgate CT11 8LP.

David Rumsey

August 2012