We had fantastic weather and a full house again for our penultimate summer meadow walk at Brookmead and Colwall Village Garden. Lindsay Williams, owner of Brookmead and Trustee of Colwall Orchard Group, kindly led the tour that took us to four fields all restored in 2019 with support from Herefordshire Meadows and funding from Plantlife and the Prince of Wales’ Charitable Foundation.

At Lugg Mills Orchard we had a good discussion on the complexities and opportunities of combining both species rich grassland restoration with traditional orchard establishment with items of consideration including; grazing timings, tree guards and specialist hay making machinery.

In Brookmead Meadow we were treated to a presentation from University of Liverpool PHD researcher Indie Jones. Indie is looking into invertebrate populations on grasslands across the country, hoping to deliver supporting evidence for the use of wildlife corridors as a conservation tool for pollinators (e.g. Buglife’s B-Lines project), and helping to inform future conservationefforts. You can read more about her research project here. FW[1]

Finally we had the chance to come face to face with the flock of rare breed Leicester long wool sheep that are helping to manage the meadows across the site with shepherd, Kath Killick giving a brief presentation about the breed and the grazing methodologies she employs.

The whole area is a fantastic community resource with education and engagement being central to the land management approach.