Country diary: this flailed landscape still has stories to tell

Brigstock, Northamptonshire: Hedges have been brutally cut back but memories of ancient oaks live onDespite yet more unseasonably warm weather, autumn has firmly arrived in Northamptonshire, with the ash trees turning yellow and assorted leaves starting to drift. In the grounds of Fermyn Woods Hall – an impressive manor with gothic limestone facades, mullion windows and roofs of locally quarried Collyweston slate – stand a handful of grand poplars. Naked now of their own leaves, they