Archived News

10th July 2019

Another four weeks has flown by in which we hosted a Clay pigeon shoot and hog-roast for fifty people on the hottest day of the year!

Many of our Belted Galloway herd spend the summer grazing the North Downs, a Site of Special Scientific Interest.  Conservation grazing is an important part of our Higher Level Stewardship Scheme and we work in conjunction with the National Trust following the HLS specification from Natural England.

This coarse grass is being grazed down, which over many years should enable the finer herbs to become more prevalent and keep the encroachment of scrub at bay in certain areas. The hillside does have areas of scrub and woodland which are also important habitats for a variety of species and alongside the chalk downland they provide a diversity of flora and fauna.

Today we moved the Belted Galloway yearlings from the large expanse of Blatchford Down east, into the smaller west side where there is fabulous re-growth for them to graze. 

I can see the hillside from the farm house and even at a distance the white belts of the cattle can be seen against the green landscape; I wonder how many people look upon the hillside but can’t quite fathom what the moving white blobs are!

This group of 29 have been a little unusual since going into this grazing compartment, because they have spent much of their time in two separate groups.  They have grazed in amongst the scrub and across the open grassland which is fantastic, but it has made checking and counting the cattle in their sub-teams, more like a fitness regime for us, walking up and down the hill!

The Sandy Meadow pond that we dredged in February, began to re-fill with water run-off from the land above.  The pond is now filled with clear water and is already teeming with pond life above and below the waterline.  This was a pond previously cleared by Laurence’s father and grandfather and the water used to be pumped from the pond, across the field to Park Farmhouse before mains water was supplied.

Back