Clements End - revisited to fell another tree
While I was at Speech House Lake recently I spoke to a guy who was fishing with his family. His name is Dave ( he's given me permission to use it ) and he works for the Forestry Commission. We talked about the lake and it's 'uses' and then out of the blue he told me that 'he'd cut a tree down across a path for Merlin'.
Needless to say I was very interested and asked him to explain. Well it went along these lines:-
- he was asked to go and cut a tree down at Clements End for Merlin's production because when they did it before it didn't work out how they wanted it to.
- he told me that when he got to the tree, the crew had prepared a 2' square hole which was 2' deep. There was low scaffolding along the holes sides and the hole was going to have a camera in it - looking up so that the tree 'falls' on it.
- he prepared the tree for felling and at the given sign he completed the felling and the tree fell onto the scaffolding around the camera.
- one take he said that's all it took.
How could it be possible for me to get such unexpected information that I hadn't even asked for, so I asked him to draw me a map of where the location was - and he did this quite happily. He did say that the hole had been filled in now and that all I might find now was a slight indentation. What the heck I thought, us Merlin location hunters will look for anything.
Anyway, armed with the drawn map I went to Clements End. Past the Montague Arms and as the road bears right there's a small road slightly off to the left. I parked close to the chapel (which is on the right coming from the pub) then just as he said I went up the path opposite the chapel.
Path opposite The Chapel
True to his word there was a tree stump on the left, a tree trunk and an indentation in the ground on the right
Tree stump looking across to its top - over the path and over the indent - all in line !!
Can you make out the indent? It's behind the grass where the leaves have collected
BTW. The number of my footsteps measuring the tree trunk and the distance from the stump to the indentation were the same, magic or coincidence ?
Have we now found a new felling location, I think we have.
Thanks for reading.
Needless to say I was very interested and asked him to explain. Well it went along these lines:-
- he was asked to go and cut a tree down at Clements End for Merlin's production because when they did it before it didn't work out how they wanted it to.
- he told me that when he got to the tree, the crew had prepared a 2' square hole which was 2' deep. There was low scaffolding along the holes sides and the hole was going to have a camera in it - looking up so that the tree 'falls' on it.
- he prepared the tree for felling and at the given sign he completed the felling and the tree fell onto the scaffolding around the camera.
- one take he said that's all it took.
How could it be possible for me to get such unexpected information that I hadn't even asked for, so I asked him to draw me a map of where the location was - and he did this quite happily. He did say that the hole had been filled in now and that all I might find now was a slight indentation. What the heck I thought, us Merlin location hunters will look for anything.
Anyway, armed with the drawn map I went to Clements End. Past the Montague Arms and as the road bears right there's a small road slightly off to the left. I parked close to the chapel (which is on the right coming from the pub) then just as he said I went up the path opposite the chapel.
Path opposite The Chapel
True to his word there was a tree stump on the left, a tree trunk and an indentation in the ground on the right
Tree stump looking across to its top - over the path and over the indent - all in line !!
Can you make out the indent? It's behind the grass where the leaves have collected
BTW. The number of my footsteps measuring the tree trunk and the distance from the stump to the indentation were the same, magic or coincidence ?
Have we now found a new felling location, I think we have.
Thanks for reading.