Lighting the Woods

LIGHTING THE WOODS

Take time to pause,

To breathe, to walk, to wander, 

To enjoy the woods of Buxton.

Step out in the darkest time of the year into an evening of wonder and remember summer flowers, butterflies, autumn toadstools and appreciate the winter cold

 

On Saturday February 21^st 2026, we invite you to take a walk through Grinlow Woods…tiny lanterns will flicker among tree roots, giant tree people will watch from the shadows, leaf-lanterns and shimmering birds will fill the branches. Join us for an evening of wonders

 

Creeping Toad is joining forces with Stone and Water, the Babbling Vagabonds and Buxton Civic Association to create Lighting the Woods, a project that will celebrate the woods of Buxton. The underlying theme is just that: "local woods: their wildlife and wonder"

 

And it depends upon our town's creativity to make it happen! We need to people to help make tiny lanterns, create woodland windows that will fit together into curtains to hang, nimble fingers to make little glowing animals!

 

The plan

We're aiming to set up a short self-guided walk from the car park at Poole's Cavern on Saturday 21st February in a loop round the woods. The walk will be there for about 3 hours and there will be lanterns to glow over, poems to read,  small, strange characters to spot…big, strange characters to wave to!  

There will be public events in January and February where anyone can come along (dates and venues below) and make a lantern to add to the collection (and make another to take home!). 

 

Events

Public events are still finalising: hopefully a couple more will join this list

All events are free

 

January: 

Sunday 25th: at Poole's Cavern: Woodland windows and wild birds : free, drop-in public event: woodland inspired art. Coinciding with RSPB's Big Garden Birdwatch, we'll be encouraging people to have a go here at the Cavern but then to take information away to do a Birdwatch survey of their own at home

Event link: https://fb.me/e/5swu3d7Qk

Times:10.30-3.00

Venue: Buxton Country Park, Temple Road, Buxton, SK17 9DH

Moreinformation about the Birdwatch: 

https://www.rspb.org.uk/whats-happening/big-garden-birdwatch

 

February: we’ll add details nearer the time:for now, get these dates in your diary!

Sunday 15th: Buxton Country Park: bottle lanterns: drawing on the patterns of winter trees, leaf skeletons and the shapes of hibernating animals 

17th Buxton Library: bugs and beasties: using shiny scrap and fluorescent card to give us some wildlife for the final event

19th: ss at the Crescent: we’re joining the BCHT for their “Where we live is…Creative’ event. Come along and make some woodland wonders! We’re going for bottle lanterns, shadow shapes, tree windows  and  general wildness 

21st: Lighting the Woods: final event: late afternoon wanderings in Grinlow Woods

 

 

 

 

Words and Ash Trees

Words and Ash Trees

poems, puppets and reflections 

on the woodlands of Buxton

We are the trees

Who shed slim grey dresses

For coats of green and brown and lichen,

Who comb the air,

Who dance in the wind,

Who grow hope from seedlings.

(From We are the Trees)

Watching our woodscape change as ash dieback worked its way into the trees, we asked people if these woods were special to them and if so, why? We turned that question round and asked people to look at the world as the trees might.

Gathering responses, back in 2020 as various waves of lockdown tripped up public events and hands on workshops,  Stone and Water and Creeping Toad took all those words and shook them up in a word-blender (like a food-mixer but with a stronger dictionary-drive). As the summer went on, we also gathered pictures from visitors to the woodlands of Buxton (thanks to Buxton Civic Association for all their work keeping our woods open, accessible and beautiful)... eventually all this grew into a pair of poems: "We are the People" and "We are the Trees". Then those pictures on cloth and paper grew shoots and faces and became a pair of tall trees with the help of visitors, Two Left Hands and our Stone and Water team

 

Our Tree People have gone on to have their own adventures...

• 2020: sprouted full grown from the fresh shoots of wild imaginations
• 2020: filmed by OffTheFence for the CelebrationEarth! project
• 2022: featured in Treasuring Trees: celebrating the trees of Derbyshire at Buxton Museum and Art Gallery
• 2022: guest appearance in the Nairn Books and Arts Festival
• The poems themselves have also been recited in story performances, used in ceremonies, and been hung on trees to provoke thoughts on woodland wanders

 

Now, as their leaves begin to fall, it felt like a good time to celebrate our Tall Trees and the poems associated with them

 

• Download the full poems, here
• Watch We are the Trees, here
• Find out more about BCA and Buxton's woodlands, here
• And visit Stone and Water's website: https://stoneandwaterblog.wordpress.com/about/ash-keys/

We are the people

Who walked,

Who wondered,

Who laughed,

Who talked,

Who held hands,

Who strolled,

Who held their hearts and loves and hopes

Under Ash trees.

(from We are the People)

with many thanks to all the members of the public who added to our collections of words, phrases, thoughts and images, to the makers, painter, wild imaginers and reckless puppeteers and to James Lampard for wonderful saxophone playing to wake our puppets, 'way back when

Autumn woodland

 

Autumn woods after rain

Borderland Voices visit Buxton Country Park

Autumn sunshine after days of rain and that October light caught the changing colours of the leaves, burning through them like stained glass…a day for wandering in woods and wondering

That’s what we did. When Borderland Voices visited the Stronger Roots project at Buxton Country Park, we wandered. And talked. And listened. And drew; building our own ways of remembering different trees and their stories. From woodland management and the signs of ash dieback to the fine differences between elm and wych elm, our day took a relaxed path through the woods and brought….

leaf print in progress

TREES

Off on an outing today,

A nice little jaunt,
Although not so far away

We’re off to Buxton to look at the trees.

Maybe there will be fine weather;

Sunny with a bit of breeze.

Maybe the trees will be pleased to see us too.

After all, they are living things.

I think it’s the least we can do

To give them respect.

To nurture, replenish, recognise

Their worth

For indeed they are the lungs of the Earth.
Silently they emerge from their evergreen rug.

Let us love them.

Let us bless them.

"just" drawing

Let us give them a hug.

Pauline

photo c/o A Collins

photo c/o A Collins

• Thanks to Frag from the Stronger Roots project for guiding us through the woods and their management
• Thanks to the artists and poets of Borderland Voices: it was a delight to see you all again and to work with you!

  

  leaf print

block print

printing a woodland floor

mixed composition

leaf rubbing

Autumn richness and worrying woodlands

Autumn Richness and Fierce Forest Faces

October events with Creeping Toad

As the season changes, if we still had bears they'd be heading for their deep cold caves for a winter of reaming. As it is, our hedgehogs are looking for good places for along sleep, the amphibians are settling into pond mud and tucking into hollows under old walls and fallen logs...the wild world prepares for winter.

As part of the Buxton Civic Association's Stronger Roots project, Creeping Toad have been coordinating creative events through 2021, inviting people to explore the woods of Buxton in new ways and remind themselves of the wonder and value that lives on our doorsteps

find a cosy corner....

Autumn Richness weekend

• Saturday 9th, Sunday 10th October, 2021
• 10:30 - 15:00
• at Buxton Country Park, Green Lane, Buxton , SK17 9DH
• The event is free and materials are provided
• facebook: @creepingtoad
• twitter: @creepingtoad
• book a space on Saturday: Autumn Richness - Family event Tickets, Sat 9 Oct 2021 at 10:30 | Eventbrite
• book a space on Sunday: Autumn Richness - Family event Tickets, Sun 10 Oct 2021 at 10:30 | Eventbrite

The leaves are turning golden, the berries are ripening and we’ll celebrate the changing season with a weekend of autumn activities. Join us at Buxton Country Park and make your own autumn wildlife book (then go exploring in the woods to see what wildlife you can find). You could also weave a panel of grass, leaves, wools and feathers. We’ll celebrate REC Theatre’s performance of Mr Fox (#fantasticmrfox) on Sunday 10th with our own woodland animal wall-panels decorated with leaves grass, and drawings sharp fox faces, rabbit smiles or clever crows...or you might prefer a colourful toadstool panel, a treasury of berries

Mr Fox performances: find out more on facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RecYouthTheatreCompany/

Fierce Forest Faces

• 26th October (Tuesday)
• Buxton Country Park, Green Lane, Buxton, SK17 9DH
• 10:30 - 13:00
• The event is free and materials are provided
• Here is a link for booking spaces but drop-ins are welcomed too!
• facebook: @creepingtoad
• twitter: @creepingtoad

Take a story from the woods home for Hallowe’en…inspired by our local trees, we will create some tree-people or animal masks. There will be faces that could fit in a window and glare at passers-by or you might make a mask to turn you into someone else... Will a fox face to keep your house safe? or a staring tree? A owl with wings outspread to chase dangerous mice away?

Tall Tree Tales

Tales of Tall Trees

or maybe tall tales of trees

~ the Stronger Roots Project ~

The shadow of a tree falls over the path, over your path, over your shoulder. The shadow of a tree falls over your heart with joy and delight. Or wariness, perhaps, as the branches sway while the wind is still, as the trunks creaks and leaves sigh.

Turning, we see the whisper of a tree-promise, floating away down the path, a leaf of opportunity to chase, to catch, to treasure….

We were talking about trees. Telling stories about trees. Listening to personal tales of trees: the best woods for den-building, the best trees for rope swings, the places where you would be disturbed (by interrupting adults), the places where you wouldn’t. Glades for picnics. Where there were rabbits. A stream to splash in. Children whose year of interrupted education had given them time to really get to know the woods of their town

During Buxton Wild Week, I was telling stories in two of our local schools: Buxton Juniors and Burbage Primary. I was there as part of Buxton Civic Association’s Stronger Roots project. Coordinating the Arts Engagement Programme within the wider project, we’re holding all sorts of events through the town over the next few months. 

We have made books among the bluebells. This weekend we made puppets inspired by the woods around us. We’ll be using tree identification to inspire printing and personal tree-books in early July (Buxton Wild Week, 2). There will be a sketching workshop and a film-story-be-inspired session as part of Buxton Festival Fringe later in July. 

Through August there will be Woodland Tuesday workshops: free, small, creative, and possibly quite frivolous, activities every Tuesday through the holidays. I’ll post details as plans finalise, or you can find more here

At Burbage, as well as stories, we had time to draw. They didn’t set out to be tree shadow pictures: we were looking at scribbling techniques and using that process to draw quickly and confidently, but when I came to look at the results, they felt like the shadows of trees falling over our lives.

All of this makes me think of workshops  our local community group Stone and Water ran last summer. Out of these sessions came various collective poems….one of which ends:

We are the people 

Who made the swings,

Who built tree houses,

Who fought with sticks,

Who made the bows,

Who fired the arrows,

Who fought the dragons,

Who camped in the shade,

And toasted marshmallows (on an ashwood fire.)

with many thanks to the pupils, teachers and attentive ears 

of Buxton Juniors and Burbage Primary Schools