Hedgerow Project with Devenish Bradshaw Charitable Trust

The Devenish Bradshaw Charitable Trust was delighted to receive a £1,000 donation from CPRE South Wiltshire this year

The metalled path between Laverstock village and the eastern outskirts of Salisbury City caused much controversy when it was installed in the 1990s. It cuts across scenic water meadows and a chalk stream tributary of the Salisbury Avon, the River Bourne. For the first few years of its existence, while the path proved a success in terms of its primary role, providing safe access for school children to the secondary schools and primary school in Laverstock, it had a devastating effect on the water meadows to its South.

Cut off from the farmstead and with poorly designed cross access for livestock, the fields were largely left abandoned. Access to the water meadows was not permitted adding further to the atmosphere of neglect.

In the early 2000s a small group of local residents began to raise interest in the water meadows and chalk downs of Laverstock. We organised wildlife walks and talks and began low-key conservation work. But the owner of the water meadows stopped short of entering an agreement with us for their management.

Finally, after much cajoling and campaigning, together with the forming of a fortuitous partnership with a local businessman, we were able to begin to reintroduce grazing and hay making across the water meadows and manage permissive access through the forming of a community farm Community Interest Company and establishment of a Farm Business Tenancy.

In 2018 another good bit of luck transpired when a Canadian philanthropist offered to put up the money for the majority of the southern area of water meadows providing a Charitable Trust was formed to own and care for the land.

The Devenish Bradshaw Charitable Trust subsequently bought the remainder of the water meadows of the southern area to the west of the River Bourne in 2020 with further funding from the philanthropist, Peter Bradshaw.

Since buying the land, the Trust has worked hard to enhance both the wildlife and landscape interest of the meadows. We are restoring wildflowers back into the swards and coppicing and pollarding boundary willows, increasing permissive access and installing attractive oak benches and signs. Hedgerow restoration is an important aspect of our work.

We were delighted to receive a £1,000 donation from CPRE South Wiltshire this year. The funding has been invested in buying hedgerow species to form a new hedgerow along the boundary of the metalled path. We have chosen hedgerow species which were once common on the water meadows but have been lost during the years of abandonment. Alder and hazel will form the bulk of the hedge with another six species of native hedgerow shrubs providing further variety of wildlife habitat and sensory interest.

To prepare the ground for planting we have run a small herd of cattle in the field from late summer to early autumn. The cattle will leave the field in early October then a team of our volunteers completing their Duke of Edinburgh award at the local St Joseph’s secondary school will move in to start preparing the ground. We have placed willow brash next to the area in which the hedge will be formed.

The volunteers are sorting the brash into material to be used to protect the hedgerow saplings from deer and rabbit browsing, material to provide stakes for the young trees and material to form a nurse dead hedge which will shelter the young trees and dissuade people and dogs from trampling them.

The young trees will arrive between November and March at which point we will deploy our Saturday morning voluntary group made up of Duke of Edinburgh volunteers from other local schools together with local adult volunteers to help with planting. A specimen Bird Cherry Tree is also being donated by Laverstock WI with a tree planting ceremony planned for late autumn. Once established, the hedgerow will be regularly laid to ensure its good health and also framing of pastoral views across our water meadows from the metalled path from Laverstock to Salisbury.

David Burton

Trustee, Devenish Bradshaw Charitable Trust