Glory be to the National Trust; the more I know it, the more I love it

Mighty castles and stately homes present just one side of the National Trust in Wales but there is so much more that often goes unreported. The vast tracts of land and farms, in the uplands and along the coast, don’t just look after themselves; they need to be managed to bring out their best. They are managed for the preservation of rare plants or creatures, for sheer beauty of the landscape or to provide access so that people can get out and experience it first hand. 

Glory be to the National Trust and also to Natural Resources Wales for their support in making this happen. 

In the past year I have been lucky to see this other side through the lens of a camera and to re-live the moments as I edited the footage into films.

Tom Jones

My first assignment was at Penarfynydd Farm where I met Tom Jones the farmer. Penarfynydd is a National Trust tenanted farm 3 miles west of Aberdaron near the village of Rhiw on the Llŷn Peninsula. Twenty years ago the heathland was in poor shape with intensive sheep grazing but today it is looking good with a mixed regime which includes cattle, ponies and a specialist breed of sheep. This is a success story in which both the farm’s economy and a broad range of scarce wildlife have benefitted through multiple partners including Natural Resources Wales, working as an effective team. Penarfynydd is living proof that farming and nature conservation does not need to be a compromise. This is what Tom had to say about it:

My next assignment was to do with species rich grasslands. Since I was born 60 years ago 99% of species rich grassland in Wales has disappeared; victim of modern farming and gardening practice. But great things are happening at a dozen National Trust properties to champion these grasslands, to restore hay meadows brimming with wild flowers and to inspire people to have a go with their own pockets of land.  The result is beautiful and creates a paradise for bees, butterflies and other insects.

Dave Swanton

To raise awareness of this project, which is supported by Natural Resources Wales, I was asked to make films at three of the properties; Powis Castle, Erddig and Bodnant. It was a privilege to meet the gardeners, to see and hear how they manage their grasslands.

Steep terraces rise up from the Great Lawn to the red Powis Castle on the skyline. Giant topiaries and manicured lawns at the top, then lush herbaceous borders and, on the lowest slopes, trees and shrubs in a sea of tall grass packed full of ox-eye daisies. The wild, natural flora complements the formality and landscaping. Dave Swanton explains:

We managed to attract the attention of Country Life and had a small news item about Powis Castle and its grasslands published in a summer edition of the magazine.

I’d not been to Erddig before, really impressive but a different look and feel to Powis. Over 2,000 orchid spikes were in bloom on the canal banks near the great house  – up until the 1980s these would have been mown down the moment they lifted their heads out of the ground. Glyn Smith explains:

At Bodnant we did not go to the usual places but started in Old Park Meadow which was only recently opened to the public. Here, as at the other properties, I was introduced to the wonders of yellow rattle, a magic ingredient which reduces the vigour of the grass, creating pockets for wild flowers to colonise. Bill Warrell explains:

Suitably inspired I bought a 500g bag of yellow rattle seed and sowed it in different parts of my lawns and grass banks last autumn. It needs to be done at that time of year so that the seeds are exposed to winter chills, a prerequisite for germinating in the spring. Would putting them in the deep freeze achieve the same purpose?

Orchids at Erddig

If my lawn does indeed take off into a hay meadow it’ll need mowing in August so I joined in a scything workshop that was organised at Bodnant and learnt about snath and peen. A snath is the wooden handle of a scythe onto the end of which is fixed the razor sharp blade of a scythe, in our case an Austrian scythe. Keeping it sharp is of the essence; rubbing a wetstone repeatedly over the top of the blade, then removing the burr on the underside, every two to three minutes.

But after a day of scything, sharpening alone will not be enough, and it will be time to peen your blade. This is a cold forging of the steel; using a hammer to strike onto a peening rig, the final 4 mm of the blade is beaten outwards to give a thin profile which is then ready for sharpening.

Why does it need to be a wetstone? In sharpening, the stone is taking off dirt and metal which would gunge up the stone unless it is kept and washed in a pouch of water.

In summer 2015 I will publish an article about the Bodnant hay meadows in The Countryman magazine. You can see the art of scything at our workshop in this short film, Tai Chi with a Blade:

In late summer (2014) I started another series of films covering five very different sites and types of work. The first was Gupton Farm at Freshwater West; best known as Wales’s premier surfing beach and to some people as the film set for Harry Potter or Robin Hood. Many others know it as a beautiful beach for holidays or a great space to walk the dog. What’s not so well known is that it’s home to Gupton Farm, a 400 acre farm that’s at the forefront of pioneering work to accommodate rising sea levels and climate change.

Freshwater West

Through appropriate grazing in different seasons the National Trust’s tenant farmer, Chris James, is working in partnership with Natural Resources Wales, to help the landscape respond in a natural way. As sea levels rise and squeeze the narrow coastal strip, once arable fields are being encouraged to revert to dunes, thereby providing effective defences against flooding and extending scarce habitat.

Beyond the dunes is a rare fen meadow, a haven for all sorts of flora and fauna and a vital feeding ground for overwintering birds. Through anticipating change, this habitat will be saved and migrated inland; and it’s being done without compromising the financial viability of the farm. Jonathan Hughes, General Manager for the National Trust in Pembrokeshire, explains how it all works:  

I went back again in the winter when the land was thoroughly waterlogged and amongst other things we saw large numbers of lapwings and other species feasting on the grains from the silage and the many insects and invertebrates. Birds and cattle, farmers and ornithologists - all in harmony; perfect!

Jonathan Hughes, General Manager for the National Trust in Pembrokeshire, describes and shows what it looks like in winter:

In the Gower I made a film about Cwm Ivy. For hundreds of years there has been a sea wall at Cwm Ivy but climate change and rising sea levels mean that it is no longer a defendable position. The wall has been breached and on a regular basis salt water flows into what used to be a SSSI freshwater marsh. Whilst we have lost the freshwater marsh, we have gained valuable new saltmarsh.

The outstanding issue is that the sea wall forms part of the Wales coastal path and at present walkers are needing to take a diversionary route.

Alan Kearsley Evans explains the situation in this short film and the plans for a bridge over the breach as well as aspirations for this becoming a site for ospreys.

Wetting the Migneint. The Migneint, a vast, upland bog, between Ffestiniog and Ysbyty Ifan, is much wetter than it used to be. Over a series of years the National Trust has been working with Natural Resources  Wales and several other partners to block drainage ditches; the oldest were put in to ‘improve’ the grouse shooting for the Victorians and the more recent ones to ‘improve’ grazing and productivity.

Pete the Peat - extracting a core

Anyone who has walked in the Migneint will know the tug and squelch of the peat bogs but it’s been unnaturally dry for many years. What might at first have seemed an improvement has been an environmental ‘own goal’ resulting in the loss of thousands of tonnes of peat which is a great store for carbon. Without water, new peat can’t form and dry peat oxidises, releasing CO2 into the atmosphere.

Another consequence of ditches is that rainwater rushes off the uplands contributing to floods downstream in the Conwy valley.

Andrew Roberts from the National Trust explains the finer points of building 30,000 dams and Pete Jones, the Peatland Ecologist from Natural Resources Wales, extracts 500 years of history from a core of peat.

Dolmelynllyn is for lovers of the lower plants. The ancient woodlands around Dolmelynllyn are a Mecca for lichens, liverworts and mosses; the so-called ‘lower plants’. Students travel hundreds of miles to see the rare specimens, just a few miles north of Dolgellau, many of which have disappeared elsewhere a long time ago.

Red-eyed shingle lichen

The magic formula is an abundance of rain, the temperate Celtic rainforest, fresh air and sensible management by the National Trust with help from Plantlife and Natural Resources Wales.

Rhodri Wigley, the lead ranger for the National Trust at Dolmelynllyn, and Dave Lamacraft, from Plantlife Cymru, explain what’s so special and how they care for it.

The coastal heathland of North Pembrokeshire is hardly prime agricultural land and without grazing, it would soon become overgrown; bad news for walkers, also for birds such as chough and for several rare plants.

Andrew Tuddenham

For many years the National Trust has made use of wild ponies to keep the heaths under control but now the focus has switched to grazing by Welsh Blacks. Not only do they do a better job, they also provide valuable food helping to offset the costs of conservation.

Until recently the cattle were overwintered in a number of small barns scattered across the area. But now all over-wintering has been brought under one roof at Southwood Farm; much more efficient and making it feasible to breed and build up the herd.

Traditional field walls ripped up in the drive for greater productivity are being replaced to allow greater management of grazing land, moving cattle in time to avoid turning fields into mud baths. New footpaths are being introduced connecting with the nearby coast path and there are plans to create a bunkhouse. And for bedding the cattle are enjoying the local heather and gorse harvested with a Ryetec Flail Collector to create fire breaks on the heath.

Everyone’s a winner it seems! Here’s Andrew Tuddenham explaining the background and the plans for the future:

In the Autumn I enjoyed the two day Heathlands for the Future seminar organised by the HLF Llŷn Landscape Partnership (Partneriaeth Tirlun Llŷn). There is so much being done - I wrote up the event as a series of 5 x blogposts:

Heathlands – walking the talk

Farmers; not scapegoats but partners in conservation

Heathland Bedding

A 'new' boat for the Aberdaron Regatta

State of the Choughs 2014

There is so much material from all these stories that I am converting it into a presentation about the NTs conservation work in Wales; the first booking is with the Flintshire U3A.

Gupton Farm, wet and wintry

We visited Gupton Farm at Freshwater West in September 2014 when it was as dry as a bone and learnt how farming and conservation are working together. We returned in January when the land was thoroughly waterlogged and amongst other things we saw large numbers of lapwings and other species feasting on the grains from the silage and the many insects and invertebrates. Birds and cattle, farmers and ornithologists - all in harmony; perfect!

Jonathan Hughes, General Manager for the National Trust in Pembrokeshire, describes and shows what it looks like in winter:

And in case you did not see the summer version this is what it looked like then:

Southwood Farm & Heathland Beef

The coastal heathland of North Pembrokeshire is hardly prime agricultural land and without grazing, it would soon become overgrown; bad news for walkers, also for birds such as chough and for several rare plants.

For many years the National Trust has made use of wild ponies to keep the heaths under control but now the focus has switched to grazing by Welsh Blacks. Not only do they do a better job, they also provide valuable food helping to offset the costs of conservation.

Until recently the cattle were overwintered in a number of small barns scattered across the area. But now all over-wintering has been brought under one roof at Southwood Farm; much more efficient and making it feasible to breed and build up the herd.

Traditional field walls ripped up in the drive for greater productivity are being replaced to allow greater management of grazing land, moving cattle in time to avoid turning fields into mud baths. New footpaths are being introduced connecting with the nearby coast path and there are plans to create a bunkhouse. And for bedding the cattle are enjoying the local heather and gorse harvested with a Ryetec Flail Collector to create fire breaks on the heath.

Everyone’s a winner it seems! Here’s Andrew Tuddenham explaining the background and the plans for the future:

Formal gardens with a wildflower feast

Since I was born 60 years ago 99% of species rich grassland in Wales has disappeared; victim of modern farming and gardening practice. But great things are happening at a dozen National Trust properties to champion these grasslands, to restore hay meadows brimming with wild flowers and to inspire people to have a go with their own pockets of land.  The result is beautiful and creates a paradise for bees, butterflies and other insects.

To raise awareness of this project I was asked to make some YouTube films at three of the properties; Powis Castle, Erddig and Bodnant. It was a privilege to meet the gardeners, to see and hear how they manage their grasslands.

Steep terraces rise up from the Great Lawn to the red Powis Castle on the skyline. Giant topiaries and manicured lawns at the top, then lush herbaceous borders and, on the lowest slopes, trees and shrubs in a sea of tall grass packed full of ox-eye daisies. The wild, natural flora complements the formality and landscaping. Dave Swanton explains:

I’d not been to Erddig before, really impressive but a different look and feel to Powis. Over 2,000 orchid spikes were in bloom on the canal banks near the great house  – up until the 1980s these would have been mown down the moment they lifted their heads out of the ground. Glyn Smith explains:

At Bodnant we did not go to the usual places but started in Old Park Meadow which was only recently opened to the public. Here, as at the other properties, I was introduced to the wonders of yellow rattle, a magic ingredient which reduces the vigour of the grass, creating pockets for wild flowers to colonise. Bill Warrell explains:

Suitably inspired I have bought a 500g bag of yellow rattle seed to sow in different parts of my lawns and grass banks this autumn. It needs to be done at this time of year so that the seeds are exposed to winter chills, a prerequisite for germinating in the spring. Would putting them in the deep freeze achieve the same purpose? Thinking even further ahead I have booked myself onto the scything workshop which is being run at Bodnant on 19^th August – no point growing a hay meadow if the beauty and tranquillity is then chewed up by a noisy strimmer!

Many thanks to the National Trust and to Natural Resources Wales for making this happen.

Abergwesyn Commons - Not such a common place

Abergwesyn Commons, owned by the National Trust, are about as close to a wilderness as you get in Wales. For the last two years Project Officer Jess Tyler has been working on management of the area, and wonders if we are taking the uplands for granted. [This article appeared in Natur Cymru Autumn 2011]

There is no place I have been quite like this part of north Breconshire, the rooftop of Wales. Lichen-covered Birmingham Corporation watershed markers indicate the 11 mile boundary between the Elan Valley to the north and Abergwesyn Commons to the south. The medieval remains of long huts, summer farm dwellings, remind us how this region would have once had so many more communities relying on a land less isolated than today. The tracks of the drovers and evidence of peat cutting reflect the activities of times gone by. Prehistoric sites scattered across the area show signs of activity from the Bronze Age and before. The quartz standing stone on the hill top of Drum Nantygorlan would have been at least 2 metres tall when upright. Now it rests on its side, pointing walkers to the isolation beyond.

Abergwesyn Commons consists of seven contiguous upland commons, and are a prime example of land affected by many external influences. For the last two years colleague Joe Daggett and I have been looking at management of the area through the Abergwesyn Commons Project. We have also worked extensively on the large areas of blanket bog that exist on the commons, carrying out restoration works.

On the westernmost Common there are large gullies that drain from an area of 5-6 acres of bare peat – at worst these are 2.5 metres deep and are down to the mineral soil. Areas of bare peat are not necessarily a bad thing. Small areas of only a few square metres seem to have shifting colonies of cotton grass; bare areas get covered up and covered areas become bare. The golden plover has adapted to using these areas and it looks very much like a natural process of this relatively liquid, unstable peatland. However, the creation of larger areas of bare peat appears to be a culmination of factors caused by people rather than being part of a natural process.

Rampant Molinia

Thousands of acres of the west side of Abergwesyn Commons are dominated by purple moor grass, Molinia caerulea, creating a huge fire hazard from the litter it leaves every year when it dies back. When fire takes a hold here, square kilometres of vegetation are burnt. Ash from the burn further encourages the Molinia, which progressively overwhelms other bog species and aids the drying of the peat. Often these fires are superficial and only the tops of the plants are lost, but if the fire gets into the peat it can burn for weeks, even months. The damage this does to the habitat is significant.

It is likely that fire damage contributed to the creation of this larger area of bare peat but, however it started, it is clear that the area is increasing in size. We decided to target one area owned by the Trust, and a series of terraces/small dams was created to slow the water flowing away from the area, catching the peat before it got washed away. Materials local to the site were used, such as peat from hags, and chunks of bare peat that had fallen from undercut banks and from lone, small hags that had been isolated through erosion. The vegetation from on top of these hags has been used to help bind the dams and stabilise them. So far these terraces seemed to have worked well.

Mowing the Molinia

Under the fire management part of the project, 40 hectares of Molinia were cut last year to reduce flammable material. Whilst these cut areas would not stop a fire, we hoped – and it was subsequently shown – that in reducing the fuel load for a fire, it would not burn so intensely. National Trust staff and some hard core volunteers filled 1,000 heli bags with 250 tons of Molinia, which were transported and spread across the bare peat to protect it from the elements and create a more stable environment for vegetation to grow. It is likely that some Molinia will grow on the mulch but, as seen through small experiments carried out elsewhere, cotton grass and bilberry should also grow. So far the work seems to be proving highly successful. 

Changes to grazing

As much as the Trust would like to carry on cutting Molinia on the commons, it is not financially sustainable. This is where grazing comes in: in the long term the right grazing will be the answer to controlling Molinia. Although the National Trust owns the Commons and may have 'owner privileges', it does not have any grazing rights, therefore cannot manage the grazing of the land directly. This job, rightly so, falls to the farmers who own or rent the grazing rights and who are often best placed and equipped to farm these hills.

The idea of Common Land comes from the time of William the Conqueror, and the Commons Registration Act was introduced in 1965. Sheep walks of the commons were officially registered as Common Land Blocks. It is known from records over the last 1,000 years that Abergwesyn Commons have been predominantly a sheep grazing area. The Cistercian Monks, based in Strata Florida, were renowned for their wool production and for centuries during the medieval period they owned Abergwesyn Commons and more. At one point in history the king granted a royal decree stating the monks did not have to pay tax on the wool they sold. Deeds dating back two or three hundred years show ownership of up to 3,000 sheep on a single farm. 

Other evidence shows there have been varying numbers of cattle, ponies and sheep on the Commons over the last thousand years, with cattle outnumbering sheep at one point but today numbers have dramatically declined. Pony numbers have decreased, from several herds of up to 50 ponies each, to barely a handful of herds of fewer than ten ponies. Currently there is no value in hill ponies; they are no longer sold for meat, which was their main worth, so it is understandable that farmers do not keep so many.

In the last century cattle numbers have dwindled to almost nothing. There is a lot of work involved to get cattle to stick to a heft, as, if they do not, there is over 100,000 acres of open access land for them to explore. Hefts are lost and, as was shown after the foot and mouth epidemic ten years ago, once lost, hefts are difficult to get back. There are also the complications and worries of TB and other diseases spreading across herds that have no fences between them, not to mention the in-by land they will need in the winter. The financial viability of small, slow maturing cattle herds on the hill is also an important factor. As well as the loss of headage payments, changes in farming practices, farms lost to forestry, and farmers giving up farming for one reason or another, have all contributed to the decline. The list of obstacles goes on.

This decline in mixed grazing, with plummeting numbers of sheep, has helped Molinia to become a dominant plant species. Yet there still seems a policy to reduce sheep numbers without enabling or supporting the increase of ponies and cattle. The number of birds recorded, such as golden plover, red grouse and curlew, has decreased over the same period that grazing patterns have changed and the numbers of livestock on the hill have fallen. Surely there is a link here?

A way forward

This is where the whole picture needs to be looked at. As part of the blanket bog restoration, 12 Welsh Blacks have been introduced on the most westerly common, working in conjunction with a grazier. A dozen cattle are not going to solve all the problems, but are giving us a good idea of the reality of having cows on the hill and how we can overcome any obstacles.

The importance of blanket bog is recognised globally for the role it plays as a carbon store. The reality is, the resources we need to turn around, long term, the decline of this habitat, are not readily available. With any resources that do exist, we must make joint decisions with the farmers to ensure we get best value and that the work done is likely to continue. For Abergwesyn Commons to become a viable farming and conservation area, we must support the graziers to graze for the habitat we want. We may be surprised to find that what is wanted, in terms of habitat, and what the farmers would like to see, may be one and the same thing.

We hold these uplands so dear to our heart yet there is so little actual support for them. This begs the question: Do we really fully comprehend the value of supporting these upland areas to breathe and adapt for the future, whatever that may bring? Or will we continue to take the uplands for granted?

In the life of this landscape we are just a blink of an eye. However, this does not lessen our responsibility towards it. Perhaps we need to listen to and support the families that have been its keepers, who have taken care of these hills for centuries, so that they will want to continue taking care of these sleeping giants for the centuries to come.

Jess Tyler is the National Trust's Abergwesyn Project Officer.

Taclo comin Abergwesyn – cam wrth gam

Sialensau cyfarwydd sy’n wynebu’r 7 darn o dir comin anferth o fewn Prosiect Tir Comin Abergwesyn. Gormod o laswellt y gweunydd, ardaloedd helaeth o fawn agored yn erydu, niferoedd stoc yn disgyn ac adar gwyllt yn prinhau…..

Nod y prosiect yw canfod atebion ymarferol i’r problemau hyn. Yn ystod y 2 flynedd ddiwethaf caewyd ffosydd a chrewyd terasau yn y darnau o fawn noeth er mwyn arafu llif y dŵr ac atal diflaniad y mawn. Torrwyd ardaloedd o laswellt y gweunydd, sy’n creu cymaint o berygl tân oherwydd y matres o ddeunydd gwyw sy’n casglu ar y ddaear oddi tanodd, a thaenwyd y torion dros y mawn agored. Bydd hyn yn gwarchod y mawn rhag tywydd garw ac yn rhoi cyfle i blu’r gweunydd a llus egino.

Mae sefydlu trefn bori addas yn her fawr. Defaid fu yma’n bennaf dros y 1,000 mlynedd ddiwethaf ac roedd mynachod Ystrad Fflur yn enwog am gynhyrchu gwlan. Bu rhywfaint o wartheg a merlod yn pori hefyd. Ond prinhau mae’r merlod oherwydd nad oes galw am y cig ac mae gwartheg wedi diflannu’n llwyr o’r ucheldir oherwydd problemau cadw stoc ar ucheldir eang a phryderon eraill, fel lledaeniad TB. Fel y mae niferoedd stoc wedi disgyn, lleihau hefyd mae poblogaethau adar fel y cwtiad aur a’r gylfinir. Cyflwynwyd 12 o wartheg duon Cymreig yn ddiweddar – cam bychan ond gwerthfawr o ran gwella’n dealltwriaeth o anawsterau ac ymarferoldeb ffermio ar yr ucheldiroedd hyn, sydd mor bwysig i ni gyd.