Coopers Hill LNR is an SSSI consists of 137 acres of Atlantic Beech woodland, with pockets of orchid rich limestone grassland (good for fungi and species including the Roman snail), now owned by GCC and managed by the Warden from Crickley Hill (currently Julian Bendle). It includes High Botheridge Camp Scheduled Ancient Monument, the remains of an Iron Age hill fort, possibly the largest in Gloucestershire. The Cotswold Way runs through the reserve and of course it is the site of the annual Cheese Rolling Race, said by some to date from Pre Roman times.

These woodlands were listed in the Doomsday book in 1086 being part of the holdings of the monks of Gloucester Abbey (who built nearby Prinknesh Abbey) When Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries he made Prinknesh a hunting lodge and made the surrounding woodland, including Coopers Hill, a Royal hunting Ground. Coopers Hill has been registered as Common Land since medieval times with the commoners having rights of Herbage, Pannage, Estovers and Turberry (grazing for cattle, sheep etc; allowing pigs to forage for acorns; cutting or gathering wood; digging turf or peat for roofing or fuel)

The Before picture

The After picture

Our precious Faraway tree has been at risk many times but we have always managed to keep it safe from harm

If we grasp it from both sides we can surely push it straight onto the fire, don’t you think?

An ancient form of woodland management is coppicing where trees, generally Hazel, are cut down to ground level, resulting in multiple stems emanating from the stump. This process benefits many forms bird and insect life. Every ten years or so these shoots are harvested for use in hedging and the production of hurdles and other items. GVCV coppiced one area last autumn and the task on Sunday 20 December was to continue the process on the next adjacent area.

As well as making use of this material on the site an amount is also provided to schools in the area who operate Forest Schools to educate their children in aspects of nature, woodcraft etc. We selected and stacked suitable material for this by the side of the track for later collection and delivery by the Warden.

Our activity produced quantities of brash, material with no real use, which we burned on a fire, carefully monitored by the warden as was necessary on a fine but fairly windy day. We made good secondary use of the fire by cooking potatoes in tinfoil, just the thing for a hot, filling lunch.

I could have washed the car if I’d stayed at home today

I’ll find that baked potato if it’s the last thing I do

So tea break at 11, lunch at 12, finish at 1 and a pint in the pub on the way home. Everyone happy with that?

We managed to coppice a significant area as well as clearing a quantity of bramble and the like and as the light faded and we packed away our tools we were able to look round with some satisfaction at a large area of nothingness (where once there was dense woodland and scrub). But we know where we will be working again in 10 years time!

This was a task for National Trust at Newark Park Osleworth. We were working primarily for the tenant farmer. Under the Higher Level Stewardship scheme we were helping restore grassland by removing a large area of scrub and bramble on a steep slope. With seven GVCV and two National Trust volunteeers plus the ranger, we managed to clear a large area, despite the sometimes inclement weather. The cuttings were burnt on site.

This is a site we hope to return to in the future.

Woodchester Park, a tranquil wooded valley, contains a ‘lost landscape’ with remains of an 18th- and 19th-century landscape park. The early 19th Century gardens were associated with a Georgian mansion in the grounds of the park, which was later replaced by Woodchester Mansion.

The National Trust has been working for 17 years to reduce the area of planted woodland and increase open areas such as pasture and natural landscape. Work has already been done to return 20 hectares of land to grazed pasture, to benefit the population of rare greater horseshoe bats. The greater horseshoe feeds off the invertebrates associated with cattle and sheep, and so providing more land for pasture in turn creates more feeding areas for these rare bats. The Ebworth Centre in the Park contains a herd of conservation cattle.

The work that we carried out was scrub clearance on Scotland Bank which is at the bottom of the park. The work is part of a Higher Level Stewardship Scheme to revert the area back to grassland which is how it was 30 or so years ago.

The weather forecast was for bitterly cold weather all day but in the event it was benign, relatively warm and with bright sunshine for most of the day. Those wearing Long Johns soon regretted their caution, especially around the fire where we burned the brash.

We cleared and burned brash previously cut by the Warden, whilst he worked with a chain saw to ensure that we did not run out of material to process.

It was great to look back at the end of the day and see clearly the difference our efforts had made.

On Sunday 20th September 8 volunteers helped to clear reeds from about 2/3rds of the pond at Quedgeley Local Nature Reserve, that had become overgrown. This opened up the pond to benefit local wildlife. Indeed in the process we came across frogs, a female toad, two common newts as well as dragonflies and a comma butterfly; a Great Spotted Woodpecker called from the top of one of the trees and later on we watched 8 Buzzards soaring above . We also began to cut back some bramble and clematis from nearby areas of grassland to improve the area for wildflowers.

Following on from the walk at Cleeve Hill in July we ventured forth onto Alney Island Nature Reserve in Gloucester. Quite a different type of habitat, much of it influenced by flooding but also areas with calcareous species.

Four of us set off from the reserve car park and only just the other side of the gate into reserve were looking at Willowherb, Tall Melilot (a member of the pea family), Knapweed and St John’s wort. Again the aim was to introduce some of the characteristics of the plants to aid identification. All together we were able to identify over 60 species as well as 8 species of butterfly. Alongside the cycle path we came across some damp grassland plants such as Gypsywort and Figwort, plus an area nearby with plants more associated with limestone grassland such as Common Centaury and Ploughman’s Spikenard.

It proved to be a fruitful morning in terms of plants and just goes to show that you don’t necessarily need to venture far to come across a wide range of species.

We hope to include some more of these walks in 2016 and also another Winter Tree ID event later in the year.

A reasonably bright but windy day was spent at Cleeve Hill Cheltenham looking at wildflowers.  Eight of us took part, led by Richard Catlin, an amateur wildflower enthusiast (and also treasurer of the group). We started from the golf club car park and headed across Cleeve Hill towards Prestbury Hill Nature Reserve. It didn’t take long before we were identifying some of the typical plant species to be found on limestone (calcareous) type grassland,  aiming to observe the characteristics to look for.  Species such as Rock Rose, Yellow-wort, Dwarf Thistle, Pyramidal Orchid, Wild Thyme and Salad Burnet were encountered, amongst many others. We were also lucky to spot a Humming-bird Hawkmoth as we sat down to lunch. Nearby was a patch of Fragrant and Common Spotted Orchids. On Prestbury Hill we came across several species of butterfly including Small Blue and a fleeting view of what may have been a Duke of Burgundy Fritillary (we can only hope).

An interesting time was had by all participants and hopefully, despite the rain lashing we got at the end, everyone went away having learnt a bit more about plant identification.

The National Trust wanted us to cut down some areas of hawthorn and bramble to open up the site and prevent the thorn taking over. 6 of us worked with Tim (the warden).

Continuing from where we left off 2 weeks ago:

And tackling a new area:

Although there is still much work for Tim to manage this site, much progress was done by the end of the day:

We enjoyed a fantastic sunset!

To keep the area clean and tidy, we burned what we cut. The bonfire got very hot by the end of the day!