Latest news with #Hitchin
BBC News
19-05-2025
- BBC News
Hertfordshire pride bench set on fire replaced
A pride bench which was set on fire a month ago has been Police said they were investigating a suspected arson following the blaze in Windmill Hill, Hitchin, but added that "at this time all lines of enquiry have been exhausted and no suspect has been identified".A fundraising page set up by North Herts Pride raised over £2,000 to install the new Kit Rees, 26, said the huge amount of support they had received was "completely wild" and they were in talks to get more benches in North Herts. "We started off having picnics on Windmill Hill and we thought it was a good idea to put a bench there," they said."The bench is symbolic and acts as a safety beacon in a very visible location."We cannot ensure this [the bench being set on fire] won't happen again, but it is about trying to mitigate the hate as much as it is trying to replace it with love."Hertfordshire Police said that should any new information come to light about the incident, it will be acted upon accordingly. Follow Beds, Herts and Bucks news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.
The Guardian
13-05-2025
- General
- The Guardian
Country diary: The simple joys of pavement plant-spotting
I'm a proud member of Happy (the Hitchin association of pavement plant yokels), so-called by my friend Phil, a fellow wildflower enthusiast. You'll find us roaming the town centre, scanning brick walls and peering into paving crevices on the hunt for the tenacious species that thrive in these oft-overlooked habitats. I had my pavement epiphany a couple of years ago outside the chemist on Hitchin high street when I saw a little lass bending down, scrutinising the paving stones. Her dad soon whisked her away and I went over to look. She'd noticed a community of self-seeded plants growing in a semicircular crack. The diversity of the miniature garden astonished me: mosses, meadow grass, goosegrass, common whitlowgrass, sow thistle, fleabane, and there, among the annual plants and perennial cigarette butts, a seedling with trilobed leaves – a Hitchin speciality – rue-leaved saxifrage (Saxifraga tridactylites). Now it's early May and this three-fingered rock-breaker's tiny white flowers have opened in the sun, the foliage blushing redder the drier and sunnier its location. Looking closely, you can see sticky hairs lining the fleshy leaves and stems – but be prepared for funny looks if you lie prostrate on the pavement to examine this low-growing annual. Surprisingly for a plant that naturally grows on limestone cliffs and sand dunes, the first UK record was from Chancery Lane in 1597. Once rue-leaved saxifrage had infiltrated street cracks and wall crannies, it developed a reputation for urban persistence that seems to be borne out locally – I recently tracked down a record of 'rue-leaved sengreen or whitlow grass' (an old name) from May 1811 and an herbarium specimen collected from a wall in Hitchin in April 1841. One spring, thousands of plants appeared on the roof above the local Sally Army shop. This year though, the summit-scaler has reinvented itself as a river-rider, flowing along the bricked banks of the Hiz, pooling between treads and risers in the steps by the pond, leaving a ruddy flush in its wake. Yet hardly anyone sees it. If it weren't for the odd inquisitive youngster and a few Happy townsfolk, I'm sure rue-leaved saxifrage would go about its annual business unnoticed for many centuries to come. Under the Changing Skies: The Best of the Guardian's Country Diary, 2018-2024 is published by Guardian Faber; order at and get a 15% discount
The Guardian
12-03-2025
- Climate
- The Guardian
Country diary: Cherry plum blossom brings a little spring spangle to the hedges
The winter-flowering cherry (Prunus x subhirtella) at the end of our road had been caught in a blizzard for months, flurries of flowers hanging from its bare branches like snowflakes that had forgotten to melt. Now its blossom has mostly fallen and turned to slush, but further along the bank, cherry plum (Prunus cerasifera) flowers are unfurling – five snow‑white petals pushing against the protective enclosure of green sepals until the rounded sepals open and arch backwards, where each remains, reflexed, barely touching the two adjacent petals at its base. This parting of the ways helps distinguish cherry plum from its near neighbour, blackthorn (Prunus spinosa) – a common misidentification in early spring. Blackthorn usually blooms a few weeks later and has sepals that remain flush to the underside of the opened petals. Every day more flecks of white spangle the cherry plum hedges, once planted as windbreaks along the old field paths that now lead up through housing estates. Nearly a century ago, the Hitchin botanist Joseph Edward Little noted that this precocious prunus was often planted to mark boundaries in and around the town as an alternative to quickset (hawthorn) hedging, and that it was popular in the villages for fence-mending. A hundred years on, you're more likely to come across the purple foliage and pink flowers of Prunus cerasifera var. pissardii: an ornamental variety widely planted as a street tree. Named after the Frenchman who introduced it to Europe in around 1880 (Ernest François Pissard, gardener to the Shah of Iran), it has acquired the unfortunate nickname 'Prunus piss'. Beneath the white cherry plum blossom, the verge outside our house has erupted in violets. Every spring I forget which species they are, so I must kneel in yearly obeisance on the damp grass, bending back the flowers for another sepal inspection. The blunt tips of these leaf-like structures tell me that this is not a bank where the early or common dog violets grow, as both species have sharply pointed sepals. These are sweet violets most likely, though they could be hairy violets or even hybrids of the two. I'm not sure I could tell. That's one of the many delights of nature – there's always something new to learn. Under the Changing Skies: The Best of the Guardian's Country Diary, 2018-2024 is published by Guardian Faber; order at and get a 15% discount
