Field Studies Council Centers (UK):
Juniper Hall Field Centre - 1998
In February 1998 Association ECOSYSTEM arranged second educational trip of
Russian kids to Great Britain. This year we visited Juniper Hall
Field Centre. In a quiet wooded valley in an unspoilt area of the chalk North Downs,
Juniper Hall, leased from the National Trust, is a superb country house dating from the
17th century. It is about 1km from Box Hill and only 40km from central London.
That is why we often went to the nation's capital, visiting both cultural
and environmental objects in the city.
The picture on the left shows our group in the Kew Botanical Gardens. This time our group
consisted from 15-17 year old school-students from two regions of Russia: Togliatti
(Middle Volga region) and Hanti-Mansiysk (North of Western Siberia) with their
teachers Eugeny Bikov and Alexander Prokofiev.
In the Field Centre each morning began from the English breakfast: oatmeal
porridge, bakon, corn flakes, toasts with jam and coffee. It was a little monotonous but
quite enough. Lunch we usually took with us into the field. During out-door lessons in the
midday we eat sandwiches and fruits taken from the buffet in the morning.
Set in an area of outstanding geological, geographical and biological
interest, Juniper Hall Field Centre offers a wide range of high quality habitats including
unimproved chalk grassland, coppiced woodlands, heathland and high quality freshwater
sites nearby. For geographers there is plenty of scope for investigations into human
impact on the natural environment, downstream changes in rivers as well as coastal
processes.
Here is our small but friendly and warm group...
It was very pleasantly to be in a warm climate in February. This time in Russia is still
very deep winter, but in South England it was warm, sunny and quiet weather.
We all remember this moment: evening, no any wind, smell of ground, rotten foliage and
young grass, singing Robins and Blackbirds. Pacification...
At our last day before leaving we gathered on the main entrance of Juniper
Hall building with our tutors, Center's staff and director. Last sun at the foggy Albion,
and back to our northern country: again to snow, wind and slush.
See you later, Juniper Hall...