Derbyshire County Council publish a document which describes the “Landscape Character” of the different areas in Derbyshire. See the Landscape Character page at the derbyshire.gov.uk website.

Marsh Flatts farm is located in the “Trent Valley Washlands” (PDF Link) aka “Character Area 69”, specifically “Lowland Village Farmlands”.

The page labelled 163 in the PDF details the tree and shrub species typically found in woodland and hedgerows. The typical hedging plants for the area are:

• 70 – 75% Crataegus monogyna (Hawthorn)
• 20 – 25% Acer campestre (Field Maple), Corylus avellana (Hazel), Ilex aquifolium (Holly), Prunus spinosa (Blackthorn)

It was really rather wet at the plot today – quite a bit of standing water on the track and in the “usual” place for a big puddle, roughly in the middle. Started me thinking about how much rainfall there is likely to be, sizing the rainwater harvesting tanks etc.

There’s a Met Office site which lists average data for different weather stations. The nearest one to the plot is Sutton Bonington, about 10 miles to the East and at very nearly the same height above sea level. The average annual rainfall for 1981 – 2010 is 620.2mm.