Final Resthaven
Today was the final work party of the 2024/25 winter habitat management season with Glorious Grasslands and we returned to Resthaven to continue the great work we started there back in February.
The site has an interesting history, which David filled us in on during the break. For a century it has provided well being services and been a forerunner in vegetarianism and healthy living. During that time, the land has undergone a number of uses and transformations, but has not been managed for quite a number of years.
It was encouraging to see many plants shooting up in areas which were covered in brambles at the start of our last visit. The cowslips were particularly good at the top of the site.
Last time I cut a 1m circular strip of bramble around the sweet chestnut, and today we found field scabious, meadow vetchling and yarrow creeping through.
There is a longer term plan being co-ordinated by Natural England and the National Trust to graze the land with sheep in future, so our restoration work will positively help preparing for this future plan. It’s clear that the seedbank underneath is pretty species rich, so any work we did today to clear back more grass and scrub will be a massive help.
There were two main tasks – clearing the extensive buddleia plants from the southern end of the site, and cutting and raking grass areas most exposed to the sun. Chris took the petrol brush cutter, and tackled some bramble arcs on the north of the site. I took the electric cutter and did some lighter bramble patches and the grass bank at the top of the site.
We had excellent food at the morning break and lunchtime provided by Resthaven, so no need to pack sandwiches today. After the morning break, I went down to the large buddleia area that Jane was clearing and cut a bit sweeping arc of grass and bramble that would have ample light after the buddleia is removed.
Rather than cut more after lunch, I set about raking and two of us cleared all the arisings from the area and it was now pretty short, ready for the growing season to start soon.
Ruth spread some seed collected from a farm in nearby Slad, which keeps local continuity and diversity.
The weather was superb today, and a great way to end what has been an amazing season. I’ve been on 15 of the work parties this season and there’s been a huge variety of different projects and sites. We’ll be returning to the Windrush valley in June to have a walk along a few particular favourite sites and see the fruits of our labour.
In the evening, we held Dursley Green Drinks at Kingshill House. This was the first of 2025, because we couldn’t organize for various reasons. So it was heartening to see around 20 people turn up, including several new faces. There were an important number of updates from people, and it was good to be able to connect a few people together working on similar initiatives.
