About US
Why Did We Do What We Did?
Some years ago, we became concerned about the lack of biodiversity at Manor Farm. Butterflies were rare, we had not seen grass snakes for a long time, and bird song seemed much more muted than we remembered it being thirty years ago. Intensive grazing of the fields, combined with herbicides, had together created a close-cropped sward of monoculture grass. Everything was striped and clipped, and in its place - but the land seemed tired, even sick. A visiting ecologist depressed us by looking at the village pond and telling us we had a swimming pool at the end of the garden, not a pond.
What was to be done? We had no idea, but we knew something had to change.
How the ball started rolling
We began reading articles and books by campaigners such as Isabella Tree and John Lewis Stempel. Their call is for a different approach to land management: a lighter touch, allowing the land to breathe, putting nature in control – perhaps this was a way forward?
We started tentatively: we cut less and gave up using sprays on the lawn; and then we started giving up more, and then more. And for everything we gave up, we were rewarded tenfold. First the butterflies and insects came back, then frogs and toads appeared, then snakes, then more birds, then deer and badgers.
Chance meetings led to introductions: to Pete West of the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Amphibian and Reptile Group; Gill Smallman of Natural Basingstoke;Chris Worgan of the Newt Partnership;Anna Michalapoulou of Southampton Universityand the author and environmentalist, Dr. Paul Sterry. With their gentle encouragement, we stopped cutting the fields and created biodiversity corridors. Lawns which had formerly run to the pond were left uncut, hedges planted and then laid, bee hives introduced with the help of a helpful local beekeeper, Steve Storer, new ponds created and so on.
Where Are We Now
Today, we are surrounded by a landscape that buzzes, crawls, scratches and cries. Every week it seems something new happens – tawny owls have returned, their hoots echoing around the fields in winter and spring; in summer swallows and house martins hunt insects in displays of unbelievable agility; hawks hover; kingfishers flash; bats dart around in increasing numbers. Snakes are filmed swimming in the fishpond or around the streams, and if you now turn over a stone or stare at a patch of ground, it jumps with life.
New projects and discoveries leave their mark - high piles of wood give food and shelter for beetles and other burrowing insects; diggers create ponds for Great Crested Newts; neighbours’ wildlife corridors bust into vigorous life, or we discover, hidden in plain sight, that what we thought was a large agricultural pond at the back of Manor Farm is in fact a medieval fishpond dating back to at least 1302, the finest surviving example of such a pond in North Hampshire.
The impact On Our Community
Initial bewilderment, even hostility to what was being done, has softened. We have been astonished by how kind people have been with their time and knowledge: bat, moth, fungi, flora, insect and amphibian experts have freely given us their advice and expertise. Often, we are stopped by walkers and told what is happening reminds them of an England of their childhood, which more than compensates for the occasional dig!
If we had a 100,000 acres we would rewild the lot. As it is, we are blessed with what we have. It’s small, but significant, not only for the ancientness of the site, but also for its returning biodiversity.
Life these meadowland fields just needed encouraging to return. The thousands who use Manor Farm’s footpath each year will, we hope, be encouraged to go home and perhaps try rewilding on their own land or in their gardens. Dig a pond, give a bit of your garden to nature, throw away your herbicide – everything helps!