Hello and welcome to the National Trust Podcast. I'm Claire Hickinbotham. Before we start this episode, I'd like to let you know that from April, the National Trust podcast is changing to bring you more immersive stories from history and nature. Look out for our new name and more by giving this show a follow in your favourite podcast app.
Today we're out walking through the hills of Oxfordshire, the wetlands of Wicken Fen, the valleys of the Upper Conwy catchment and the Mourne Mountains in Northern Ireland. That's quite some trek for a single walk. So join from the comfort of your home and find out what unites all of these unique and wonderful landscapes, and how caring for the natural world is playing a role in the cost and taste of our pints.
I've come today for a bit of a walk that I'm familiar with. So I’m at Coleshill, which is a village in Oxfordshire, and it's somewhere I walk a lot with my black lab buddy. Great rolling hills. Views to the white Horse at Uffington. The Ridgeway. And at the other side of the estate the land drops down towards the Thames and it's that direction I'm going to walk first. I'm meeting Richard, who looks after the countryside here, and he's going to explain about some of the work that they do.
We've got to head up through the village. So up the hill past the National Trust owned cottages. They're all chocolate box. They're all beautiful. One of which is the Radnor Arms, an amazing little pub with cosy nooks and crannies in it. And we're going to have a little stop there later because it features actually in 100 Great Pub Walks, a book from the
National Trust. And we're going to go on one of those walks. And hopefully at the end of the day, Richard is going to take me back to the pub and have a well-earned pint. We've walked up from the Coleshill Estate office through the village, past the Radnor Arms, the pub a lovely little spot to meet Richard Watson, who's one of the countryside team that looks after the landscape here. Hi, Richard. Nice to meet you.
Good morning, lovely to meet you!
I'm assuming you're Richard with binoculars around your head and wellies on your feet. You are well equipped.
I am.
This is such a lovely part of the world to call your office.
It is. It's fabulous. We're lucky here because we've got the Cotswolds to the north of us. And then people go down towards kind of Dorset, Devon and stuff for the holidays. But it's a bit of a forgotten corner here. But actually, as you can see, it's beautiful, lovely rolling countryside with the River Thames, to the north of us here. So we're looking over the Thames kind of flood plain.
And a lot of what we can see dropping down away in front of us is it's land that the National Trust manages.
It is. Yes. so, Buscot and Coleshill Estates amount to 2700 hectares altogether. So, yes, a large, area of land. CLAIRE HICKINBOTHAM: Unsurprisingly for Richard, the team and the millions that work outdoors throughout the year, things can get a bit wet. But working out what to do in the face of extreme and changing weather conditions adds to the daily challenge of looking after the countryside.
A lot of the work that you do around here, as we're looking down at the Thames, having climbed up to the top of the hill from the River Cole, hence Coleshill, I guess, you're doing a lot of work on the River Cole and in the Valley then around the Thames, because Buscot village has the Thames running through it doesn't it?.
It does, so water is a key theme here, both managing water in the winter or in the summer if there's big storms trying to reduce flooding, but also then conversely, in the summer during droughts, trying to keep more of the water back. Yeah. Managing the water is, a key theme for us and increasingly so as the climate is changing, we're getting more intense, weather events.
In the time leading up to meeting Richard, there had been four major storms in three months putting extra strains on the landscape. This has meant that the land Richard looks after alongside tenant farmers has been subject to intense flooding, causing the farmers to lose an entire crop.
So our farm tenants are finding it increasingly difficult to grow cereal crops. As you can see, the one in front of us on the top of the hill there was this was down by the river. It would have been under water on and off since mid-September, right the way through. So the farmers have either been unable to plant the cereal crop, or they did manage to get it in the ground. And then floods have come along and it's been under water for several weeks, and that would have killed it off.
The effects of climate change have been more noticeable in recent times than ever before. It's not just the dramatic images of damage we see in the news, but deeper and longer lasting effects at the top of our food chain. While farmers are finding it hard to grow the crops they need to keep the nation fed, the wonky weather is having a knock on effect for the things we love to treat ourselves with.
In a recent BBC news article, it's reported that the changing climate is also having an impact on the taste and cost of beer as well, with researchers from Cambridge University identifying a growing problem with hotter, drier summers and more intense winters. It's in that direction towards Cambridge, where the next stop on our pub walk begins. A stone's throw from the Maids head pub is Wicken Fen, the
oldest nature reserve in the National Trust. At no other place is it more noticeable to trace the fine lines between what is good for looking after our planet, versus the necessary agricultural work needed to keep us ticking. It's there that we meet Ajay Tegala, a ranger, helping to restore some of the land previously lost to intense farming practices.
The Fens of East Anglia once spread for thousands of square miles really, it was this vast area of reeds of water, and wildlife. But over the last sort of few centuries, really, it's gradually been tamed and drained for agriculture, for development. So a lot of this happened in the 1600s. A lot of land was drained then and up into the Victorian times, because it's really good for growing crops. It's a really good place to feed the nation from.
And of course we've got Cambridge nearby, so that's growing. So there’s all this pressure to use the land for man-made pursuits. So over a period of several years, literally, it was all lost apart from less than 1%. And Wicken Fen is part of that less than 1% of original Fen.
Part of what made The Fens so attractive for farming. It's peat rich landscape.
Peat is very good for farming because it has a high moisture content, and crops need water to grow, so it's the perfect growing medium for agriculture.
Peat is a bit of an organic super material, great for growing, but even better at protecting our planet. Peatlands like Wicken Fen amount to just over 10% of the total land in the UK. Just that small amount holds more carbon than all of the forests in France, Germany and Britain combined. There is, however, a catch. In order to stay effective at capturing carbon, peat needs to stay wet and undisturbed, something which historically hasn't happened.
When peat is removed from the environment, whether it be perhaps being ploughed and getting sort of whipped up into a dust, it can blow away because it's very fine. They used to be these big, thick, chocolate coloured clouds years ago called fen blows. We don't get them so much now, but occasionally we do. So that happens. The soil is lost. It literally blows away. And at the same time, that process releases carbon into the atmosphere.
The draining of the Fens for farming to gain access to more fertile land, to grow crops on, has been described as the greatest single ecological catastrophe that has ever occurred in England. Part of the work Ajay and the team are undertaking is restoring as much peatland habitat as possible. Not only is this helping to tackle the carbon in the atmosphere, but it's also allowing nature to thrive. And when it can do that, the positive outcomes keep on growing.
The drainage of the Fens had a- Well, a catastrophic effect on biodiversity and on nature. So many things were lost. So we've got species that went extinct. The swallowtail butterfly, for example, hung on. at Wicken Fen until the 1950s, but even the conservation work we were doing here wasn't enough to sustain it because, wildlife needs a large area. So that's kind of what we're doing here, is we're creating wider space for nature to have more room to spread and
colonize. And actually, one of the species that were lost 500 years ago was Britain's tallest bird, the crane. They went extinct due to hunting and loss of habitat, loss of the wetlands because they nest in remote, reedy spots where they're undisturbed. But a few years ago, they made a comeback to Wicken and they're on the up. So it's been yeah, a huge loss. But it's not irreversible. And that's the beauty of it. I mean, Wicken Fen’s an amazing place. So much history, so many
wildlife species recorded. But it is just a little fragment in a desert really surrounded by intensively managed land. So much has been lost and as good as Wicken itself is, it's so small and it's almost like an upside down saucer. It's kind of like a little mound surrounded by lower lying ground. And that means that the water, by the nature of gravity, drains away. And so we're constantly trying to keep it wet so those species that need that wet environment have the habitat they need to thrive.
When it comes to working with gravity, one of the more challenging spots for peatland restoration is on the side of a mountain. And it's there where our next pub walk takes place. Around the peaks and valleys of the Mourne Mountains in Northern Ireland are some stunning walks for the more adventurous, with a cosy rest stop, the Harbour House Inn and Macken’s Bar in Newcastle.
Like Wicken Fen, the area is cared for by a team of rangers, one of which is James Fisher, who has some unique ways of keeping the peatlands healthy.
Whenever we look at the plants that are growing here, it actually it would come out is that as almost an acid grassland or dry heath because there's so little water is actually being retained by the deep peat here. So what we're doing in the erosion gullies is constructing small timber dams. And where we have shallower gradients we use, bunds.
A bund is a type of embankment, sort of like a dam that's designed to keep water in one place. The bunds that have been created at the Mournes have been made with some special help from some woolly creatures.
The bunds themselves, which, it's really interesting, we've been trialling the use of sheep well, to make the bunds. These would normally be made from the coir, which is a byproduct of that sort of coconut fibre. If we can use the sheep wool which is from the sheep that are actually grazing the site, it's a good use of that wool. And it's, it allows circularity to the process. Whenever we install these dams, the water then collects behind
them. We're not trying to keep the water on the mountain as such, just to slow it enough that the surrounding landscape then starts to wet up and we get the regeneration of some of the peat building plants, such as the Sphagnum Moss and the sedges.
By allowing these plants to grow and then naturally decay in order to form the peat, it’s hoped that this can kickstart some organic regeneration, but it's a very slow process.
Peat forms at something like a millimetre a year, so you can imagine the length of time it takes for any sort of depth of peat to accumulate. But, over time, that forms a thick blanket over the landscape, which is why we call it a blanket bog.
The final stop on our pub walk takes us to North Wales and the Upper Conwy catchment. The area accounts for 3% of the total land in Wales, which is roughly equivalent to the size of the Isle of Wight. With an area that vast, there are too many great watering holes and walks to mention fully but aside from the physical work of restoring the peatland within it, Ranger Dewi Davis explains that it's the connection with the people in the landscape that can really help to make a difference.
The area that I work in is to the northeast of Eryri National Park, also known as Snowdonia National Park, and it's basically the river catchment of Afon Conwy. The river Conwy. It starts in the uplands of somewhere called Y Migneint and it flows down all the way to Conwy itself, where the famous Conwy Castle is.
There's parts of the catchment higher up, certainly where it's pretty idyllic, you know, it's the typical views and scenery of a national park such as Eryri, the mountains are a bit more rugged there. But to the south and to the east, and you've got this vast area of peatland called Y Migneint. And that's a focus, an area of focus for our project, really, in terms of the restoration of the peatland there.
Like the other rangers we have met on our walks, Dewi and the team work tirelessly to keep the peatlands wet and the water in places it's supposed to be.
But none of that would or could happen on the ground if we hadn't engaged with, the community we're working in. You know, ignore the people at your peril. has always been my, sort of mantra in the project, because if you don't bring them along with you, I'm paraphrasing Attenborough here, you know, if they don't understand the work that you're doing, and why, how can they possibly care about it themselves?
For Dewi, there is a special connection between the Welsh language and a sense of belonging, with a phrase taken from sheep farming.
One of them, one of my favourites, really, is, the notion of Cynefin. The notion of it sort of translates across to humans as well. You belong to a Cynefin. This is your Cynefin, your patch. You're comfortable there. It's where you were born and bred. And you know pretty much everyone there. And you know the rhythms of the place and all sorts so. I think if you talk about Cynefin, you truly understand the concept of Cynefin not just for farming, but for, from a human perspective as well.
You're already there, some way with some of our communities. Some of the best time I've spent has been in a farmer's kitchen, just having cups of tea and talking about everything but work that sort of builds that trust. Then you can get on to the task or the job, or the idea that you've got and yeah, without the people, you don't get anything done.
When it comes to connecting with people, there are fewer places, more perfect than the pub, and it's there that local community action and care for our spaces can grow. Tom Cox looks after his local meetup of a group called People, Planet, Pint. It's a worldwide collective started by Small 99 that aims to get people together and chatting about the world around them.
I like to think of it as a very inclusive community for anyone who is interested or concerned or just wants to talk about sustainability, to kind of come along and talk about it. It's got no specific agenda. We've got no topics that kind of have to be discussed. It just really is, just a space for folks to, to come and have a chat.
Thinking about the environment and what to do as an individual can often feel a little bit of a daunting task. But Tom is confident that by getting the conversations going at the local and by making the planet a little bit more front and centre in our social lives, we can work together to achieve our goals.
I think I'm optimistic about, about people and kind of, you know, People, Planet, Pint is an excellent example of how people come together and talk about these things and take these problem seriously and, and think of ways to solve the problem. I have absolutely no idea what it's going to be like in five years time. But I am, always encouraged by the amount of mobilization and about the amount of passionate people that are out there trying to create solutions to solve the problem.
It’s too big of a challenge to really predict where we're going to be. But I'm hoping at least socially, we'll be in a much better place and we'll have a lot more people mobilized and focused on solving these issues.
Back home in Oxfordshire having just finished our walk and coming back to the Radnor Arms for our pit stop, Richard tells me about some of the things that we can do at home to help nature thrive.
If you've got room to plant a small tree, a birch or crab-apple or cherry or something like that then do. That's great. Provide, nectar, fruit, nuts, seeds for, birds and animals and insects. A pond is one of the best things you can do for wildlife. So even if that's just a bucket sunk in the ground, with fresh water in, then the water boatmen and insects will, come to that within a few days.
The journey from wise, an insect important to saving our planet is a is a huge leap, isn't it?
It is.
But what you're saying is, actually, these are the fundamental things. This is the stuff you can do at home. And this is what is going to start that positive snowball effect, that chain of events that is going to have an impact.
Yes. The experts say that actually, if you add up the area of all our gardens in the UK, then it's much greater than the area of other nature reserves. So by all of us doing a little bit in our garden, we can help wildlife that will help with climate change as well. And it can be a real positive, exciting journey and you can share it with your children, your grandchildren. You know, we all live to see, insects and things. And so yeah, it's really great to have the wildlife in our garden.
We can all provide a bit of space. We can all help do our little bit, and then at a cumulative scale and it starts to make a really big difference.
That's a wonderful idea. And I think we can all raise a glass to that! Thank you for listening to this episode of the National Trust Podcast. If you like what you've heard and would like to join me on more walking adventures, then you'll love our new podcast, Nature Escape. Each episode, we will be exploring a natural landscape from the comfort of wherever you're listening and hearing from experts about how they care for our favourite places.
And from April, the National Trust podcast is changing. Look out for our new shows for nature and history and keep up to date with all things podcast by visiting nationaltrust.org.uk/podcasts. I look forward to joining you next time for me, Claire Hickinbotham. Goodbye.