Skip to main content

Guided walks at Gilbert White’s House
National Meadows Day

Date: Saturday 1 July

Time: 11:00 + 14:00

Location: Gilbert White’s House & Gardens, GU34 3JH

A 45 minute guided walk around the beautiful meadow at Gilbert White’s House and Gardens.

Booking Required

A hay meadow at Gilbert Whites House

Join us in celebrating National Meadows Day 2023 with a guided walk around our beautiful meadow at Gilbert White’s House and Gardens.

Discover more about the abundance of species of wildflowers and meadow plants growing on our site, including species of orchid and yellow rattle and how our ongoing efforts help maintain it as a vital habitat for butterflies, moths (including day-flying) and other insects.

Please note you must also purchase tickets to the garden to join this walk. Please meet in the Stable Yard promptly at your chosen walk time.

What are Coronation Meadows?

In 2012, Plantlife published Our Vanishing Flora, a report highlighting the loss of wild flowers from individual counties across Great Britain since the Coronation. In his foreword for the report, Plantlife’s Patron at the time, His Majesty King Charles III, called for the creation of new wild flower meadows, at least one in every county, to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Coronation.

The Coronation Meadows project involved donor meadows, the best examples of our remaining meadows, and recipient meadows, specially selected grassland sites located in the same county as the donor meadow from which they received seed to form new coronation meadows.

Green Winged Orchid at Joans Hill Farm reserve

What makes a Coronation Meadow special?

Coronation Meadows are outstanding examples of our remaining meadows, rich in a wealth of flowers and able to be held up as the flagship meadow for the county.

They will typically be semi-natural grasslands resulting from natural regeneration, managed with traditional methods, and full of local character and identity. The meadows were selected by the project technical group having been assessed and verified against the project criteria.

How Coronation Meadows are made

The Coronation Meadows, known as donor meadows, were used to literally ‘seed’ at least one new meadow (termed a recipient site) within that same county. This was usually done by collecting “green hay” from the Coronation Meadow which is then spread onto the receptor site.

Green hay is a term for ordinary hay that has been cut earlier than usual before it has shed seed. By harvesting in this way, more seed is retained within the loose hay bales and more is transferred to the receptor site, increasing the chances of success. It is spread within a few hours of being cut to ensure the seed remains in good condition.

Plantlife’s Coronation Meadows

Plantlife has 5 donor meadows, exceptional examples of wildflower meadows brimming with some of our most important grassland species such as orchids, from Cornwall to north Wales.

Since the project start Plantlife’s donor meadows have made a huge impact for wildlife in their counties.

A healthy population of Green-winged Orchids were discovered at Hustrans, a recipient meadow of Plantlife’s Joan’s Hill Farm reserve’s seed in 2013. Recently the new meadows reached the high standard required to become a new county Local Wildlife Site.

The impact of our reserves doesn’t stop at meadows. In north Wales, our Caeau Tan-y-bwlch Coronation Meadow provided the perfect donor seed for road verges near the 2023 Eisteddfod site in Boduan, Gwynedd, alongside Gwaith Powder Nature reserve.

Visit a Coronation Meadow

What’s next?

Plantlife’s aim is to restore another 10,000 hectares across the UK by 2030 to give everyone the chance of experiencing the kind of beautiful and wildlife-rich meadows that were once commonplace.

A celebration of our Coronation Meadows for King Charles III

Meadows Hub

For more information on our grassland meadow maker, and if you think you have land that could be restored into grassland please visit the meadow hub.

Wildflower at Muker Meadows

Who was involved?

The Coronation Meadows Project was led by Plantlife and in partnership with The Wildlife Trusts and the Rare Breeds Survival Trust, who worked together to achieve this goal. IT was funded by Biffa.

Rare Breeds Survival Trust logo Wildlife Trusts Logo Biffa Award Logo

Rare Breeds Survival Trust logo Wildlife Trusts Logo Biffa Award Logo

Deep Dale Nature Reserve

Location: Sheldon, Peak District, Derbyshire
OS: SK 165 698
What Three Word location:///announced.hangs.paradise

Habitat: Limestone Grassland

  • Go to:

The Reserve

Deep Dale is one of those special places where, if you visit the right part at the right time of year, you will see swathes of colour spreading over the hillsides.

Sitting within the Peak District National Park, this grassland reserve has a rich cultural history including lead mining and the remains of a Romano-British settlement on a steep-sided hill called Fin Cop.

If you’re heading for a visit, there are many beautiful plants to keep an eye out for. Why not download our plant guide and circular walk map here.

Habitat

The reserve is an area of grassland between 150-325m above sea level.

It lies within the Peak District National Park where the underlying rock is mainly carboniferous limestone. Most of the grassland is on thin soils over this rock, and so is very calcium-rich.

At the top of the slopes the soil becomes more acidic, while at the foot the soil is deeper and more fertile. Each zone has its own flora.

Species to look out for

  • Cowslip Primula veris – April – May
  • Early-purple Orchid Orchis mascula  –  April – May
  • Mountain pansy Viola lutea  – May – July
  • Grass-of-Parnassus Parnassia palustris July – October

Visit

Map of Deep Dale

Directions

From Bakewell, take the A6 towards Buxton. Approximately 3.5 miles from Bakewell you reach the White Lodge pay and display car park on the left hand side of the road.

To get to the reserve from the car park, follow the footpath leading southwards. Approximately 200 meters from the car park you reach a stile, which is one of the entrances to the reserve.

 

 

Video and Images

Greena Moor Nature Reserve

Location: Week St. Mary, Cornwall
OS: SX 234963
What Three Word location:///wobbles.cats.digs

Habitat: Culm grassland

The Whorled Caraway Field - Greena Moor
  • Go to:

The Reserve

Greena Moor is an excellent example of culm grassland where ‘culm’ refers to the rocks underneath the clay soil.

Always sparse, culm grassland suffered a catastrophic decline through agricultural ‘improvements’. The reserve is a fragment of what was once an extensive moorland and mire system, including large areas of culm grassland. It is fringed by wet woodland of alder and willows.

The nationally scarce Wavy St-John’s-wort Hypericum undulatum and Three-lobed Water Crowfoot Ranunculus tripartitus can be found here. Devil’s-bit Scabious Succisa pratensis is an important food plant for the Marsh Fritillary butterfly which are active on the reserve.

Purchase of the reserve was made possible by Unilever. Managed in partnership with Cornwall Wildlife Trust.

Habitat

Culm measures are a kind of rock from the Carboniferous era that contains thin bands of impure anthracite or culm, found only in Cornwall, Devon, the New Forest and South Wales

Always sparse, culm grassland suffered a catastrophic decline through agricultural “improvements”. The reserve is a fragment of what was once an extensive moorland and mire system, including large areas of culm grassland. It is fringed by wet woodland of alder and willows.

Species to look out for

  • Petty Whin Genista anglica -May-June
  • Meadow Thistle Cirsium dissectum – June-Aug
  • Whorled Caraway Carum verticillatum – July-Aug

Visit

Map of Greena Moor

Directions

Follow the B3254 south towards Launceston and turn right to Week St Mary. 

At the southern end of the village take the minor road signposted to  Launceston, and turn right just beyond the Green Inn. The reserve is about a mile further on the left.

 

Stories

Ranscombe Farm Nature Reserve

Location: Cuxton, Medway, Kent
OS: TQ 716673
What Three Words location: ///hood.pull.drives

Habitat: Chalk grassland, arable fields and ancient woodland

  • Go to:

The Reserve

Ranscombe Farm Reserve is Plantlife’s flagship reserve, an Important Plant Area for its arable flowers and part of a new National Nature Reserve.

We’re joining a wide partnership of organisations to launch the North Kent Woods and Downs National Nature Reserve.

This exciting venture unites our beautiful site with ancient woodlands, vineyards and other chalk grasslands in earning national status for being one of the very best nature conservation sites in England.

Ranscombe is made up of chalk grassland, arable fields and woodland. The chalk grassland is full of Common Rock-rose Helianthemum nummularium, Clustered Bellflower Campanula glomerata and Wild Liquorice alongside Skylarks and Common Blue and Marbled White butterflies.

Our reserve is also believed to be the last remaining natural site in the UK for Corncockle and home to the largest UK populations of Broad-leaved Cudweed Filago pyramidata. The first record in Britain of Meadow Clary Salvia pratensis and Marsh Mallow Althaea officinalis were here too. It really is an arable flower haven!

Sessile Oak Quercus petraea and Hornbeam Carpinus betulus grow in the Sweet Chestnut Castanea sativa coppice. This woodland has existed here since at least AD 1600 and is an important wildlife corridor in North Kent.

Habitat

Ranscombe Farm is Plantlife’s largest nature reserve in England, occupying a total area of 560 acres on the slopes of the North Downs in Kent. Recently declared as a country park, the reserve provides opportunities for quiet walks amongst attractive countryside with a fascinating flora.

The Ranscombe Farm landscape includes arable habitats, extensive ancient woodland and fragments of chalk grassland. A large part of the site is within the Cobham Woods Site of Special Scientific Interest, and the whole farm is within the Kent Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

Ranscombe Farm is managed in partnership with Medway Council as a nature reserve, working farm and country park. You are welcome to visit at any time, but please keep to the marked footpaths.

Species to look out for

  • Lady Orchid Orchis purpurea May-June
  • Corncockle Agrostemma githago June-August
  • Wild Liquorice Astragalus glycyphyllos July-August

Visit

Map of Ranscombe Farm

Directions

The nearest rail stations are at Cuxton, Strood and Rochester (visit National Rail for more information). There are also several local bus services, details of which can be found at Kent public transport or by calling Traveline on 0870 608 2608.

If you are travelling by car, the main entrance and car park are accessible directly from the A228 shortly before the roundabout (when approaching the M2 from Cuxton).

Visiting this winter

Please be aware that we are doing some conservation work around the reserve this winter. Large machinery may be operating in this woods. Please pay attention to instructions and signage.

News

We are excited to have joined a wide partnership of organisations in launching the North Kent Woods and Downs National Nature Reserve.

Ranscombe Farm will sit in the new National Nature Reserve (NNR) which unites a mosaic of ancient woodlands, vineyards and chalk grasslands in a historic environment where people have lived and farmed for millennia.

The North Kent Woods and Downs National Nature Reserve has earned national status because it is one of the very best nature conservation sites in England.

This groundbreaking NNR, full of internationally important wildlife, is the first of its kind to be made up of such a wide partnership of private landowners and public land managers, it is also the first to be partnership led.

We are also undertaking exciting work at the reserve:

  • Completing the widening of a woodland ride that supports the only surviving wild population of Hairy Lady’s-mantle Alchemilla monticola in Kent.
  • Establishing 100 new Oak standards to provide mature and veteran trees of the future.
  • Further cutting back of chestnut re-growth from over 2 hectares (5 acres) of woodland already undergoing conversion.
  • Felling of chestnut across 3 hectares (7 acres) to convert to mixed native broadleaves.
  • Removing 25 large chestnut trees along the Town Road to further open the woodland ride and relieve pressure on neighbouring veteran Hornbeams.
  • Felling chestnut coppice in a ‘halo’ around 18 mature Oak trees to help prolong their life and enhance their condition.
  • Employing a heavy-duty forest mulching machine to grind out large numbers of tree stumps (including many chestnut coppice stools) to facilitate more efficient and effective annual management.

All these important work are made possible thanks to the support our members gave to this year’s nature reserves appeal and an additional grant of over £60,000 from the Veolia Environmental trust.

Ranscombe Farm Family Adventure Map

Delve further into the secrets of Ranscombe Farm Reserve with our family expedition walk map

Exploring Ranscombe Farm Reserve – Education pack

This education pack is designed to help teachers use Ranscombe Farm Reserve for learning outside the classroom.

Winskill Stones Nature Reserve

Location: near Settle, Yorkshire Dales National Park, North Yorkshire
OS: SD 836662
What Three Words location: ///outwards.swims.bigger

Habitat: Limestone pavement and limestone pasture

  • Go to:

The Reserve

A unique landscape with spectacular views northwards to the Yorkshire “Three Peaks” of Ingleborough, Whernside and Pen-y-Ghent.

The deep fissures in the limestone pavement provide a moist, shady hideaway for a range of woodland plants including ramsons, Dog’s Mercury Mercurialis perennis and Green Spleenwort Asplenium viride. In the pasture you will find Mountain Pansy, Cowslips and Early-purple Orchids.

Plantlife bought Winskill Stones with the help of a public appeal to stop the extraction of rock from its limestone pavement and to allow its varied flora to thrive. We would also like to take the opportunity to thank the Ian Addison Charitable Foundation for their long term support of this reserve.

Habitat

Other species prefer the low cliffs or humpbacks of limestone around the reserve, and the boldest displays of colour can be found on the ledges out of reach of grazing animals. You may see Kidney Vetch, Horseshoe Vetch, Common Rock-rose and 2 saxifrages, with Meadow Saxifrage usually found in grassland whilst Mossy Saxifrage prefers more exposed conditions.

Where the soil is thinner, or on crumbling limestone, you can find cushions of Spring Sandwort, whose flowers have five white petals that are just a little longer than the green sepals between them. Here too are mats of Limestone Bedstraw, with tiny white flowers and narrow leaves in whorls of six to eight up its stems. Herbs such as this and Wild Thyme are beginning to colonise even the desolate patches of rubble waste and pavement remains in two of the reserve’s fields. Rarities that are harder to spot include Green Spleenwort, Common Twayblade and Wall Lettuce.

Species to look out for

  • Spring Sandwort Minuartia verna May-August
  • Mountain Pansy Viola lutea May-July
  • Limestone Bedstraw Galium sterneri June-July

Visit

Map of Winskill Stones Nature Reserve

Directions

Please take care on your visit. Be aware of the terrain and of any roads that pass through the reserve. Note that livestock periodically graze many of our reserves as part of their management.

Location: near Settle, Yorkshire Dales National Park, North Yorkshire

Grid Reference: SD 836 662

Explore Winskill Stones

Winskill Stones is a 74-acre reserve of limestone pavement and limestone pasture. Discover more about it with this resource.

Wild Space Adventures: Winskill Stones

Come with us to discover this wild space together and see what we can find.

Joan’s Hill Farm Nature Reserve

Location: Checkley, Herefordshire
OS: SO 592374
What Three Words location: ///paintings.fashion.feels

Habitat: Meadows, pasture and woodland

Wildflowers in bloom at Joan's Hill Farm
  • Go to:

The Reserve

Joan’s Hill Farm, set in the Wye Valley National Landscapes, is a stunning piece of Herefordshire meadowland alongside a small area of woodland. The reserve is one of several of Plantlife’s reserves to hold that generally scarce Pepper-saxifrage as well as the uncommon Dyer’s Greenweed and Greater Butterfly-orchid Platanthera chlorantha.

Some of the meadow species are less common. Also found here is Dyer’s Greenweed. It looks a little like a low-growing broom, although no more than 70cm tall, but it has no spines and its leaves are unlobed. It is a species of old meadows and grassy pastures, and was once used to produce yellow and green dyes.

The eastern block of pasture land, covering around six acres, hosts species like betony, and in the small area of woodland at the west of the reserve you’ll find many typical woodland plants.

Habitat

A stunning piece of Herefordshire meadowland, set in the Wye Valley Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

Until relatively recently it was still a working farm (the farmhouse is still privately owned) and our land here is divided into 14 different fields, with one parcel of woodland. Three hundred years ago, the farm had exactly the same boundaries as today, and the pattern of fields has hardly changed since the tithe map of 1843.

The reserve is in two parcels, separated by about 300m, but the largest part is a 40-acre block of meadow. To conserve the flowers and wildlife, we cut the meadows for hay in late summer, after the meadow plants have flowered and set seed. Any regrowth is then grazed by cattle during the autumn, but for the rest of year grazing animals are kept off the meadows to encourage the greatest diversity of plants.

Species to look out for

  • Green-winged Orchid Orchis morio April-May
  • Dyer’s Greenweed Genista tinctoria June-July
  • Pepper-saxifrage Silaum silaus June-July

Visit

Directions

Park at Haugh Wood car park and picnic site, just off the road from Mordiford to Woolhope (grid reference: SO 592 365).

Purchase of the reserve was made possible by Unilever (Timotei) and the Heritage Lottery Fund.

News:

  • We have been working recently at our Joan’s Hill Farm Nature Reserve, to improve access and maintain the orchard, this work was funded by the Woolhope Dome Environment Trust.
    We would like to take the opportunity to thank Woolhope Dome Environment Trust for funding the works, and also to the Ian Addison Charitable Foundation for their long term support.

The Wye Valley AONB Partnership are running a project aimed at reversing the decline of the Noble Chafer beetle. Despite extensive surveying on suitable habitat in summer 2022, the beetle was found at only 2 sites in the Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, with one of them being the old orchard at Plantlife’s Joan’s Hill Farm nature reserve.

An ancient apple tree on a hill

A Home Fit for Royalty

Fruit trees may live for roughly 100 years and provide decaying wood habitat during the last third of their lives. It’s important that we plant regular replacements and manage our older trees to prolong their lives, ensuring a variation in age and the continued presence of wood-decay habitats. 

Last week we were delighted to receive 10 young plum and damson trees for Joan’s Hill Farm, thanks to the Wye Valley AONB Partnership. Not only that, but 2 AONB staff helped our Reserve Manager to plant them and to build substantial guards which will protect them from cattle. Although plums and damsons are some of the fastest species to produce decaying wood, it may be 60 years before they become suitable for beetle colonisation. In the meantime, we will be putting up some artificial ‘beetle boxes’, filled with wood compost, to increase the available habitat, and to act as stepping stones between the two orchard areas at Joan’s Hill Farm. 

Noble Chafer beetle found at Joan's Hill Farm by Ellie Baggett - Wye Valley AONB https://www.wyevalleyaonb.org.uk/

Learn More About the Noble Chafer 

The Noble Chafer Gnorimus nobilis is a beetle about 20mm long with a metallic green body, speckled with white. The whole body displays a brilliant iridescence which can flash copper, gold and even violet. The adults emerge in June or July and feed on pollen and nectar from a variety of umbellifers, before laying their eggs in the decaying trunks of old trees. The larvae feed on the decaying wood, emerging after 2 to 3 years. 

The beetle’s numbers have declined in parallel with the loss of veteran trees and traditional orchards, and it is now classed as Nationally Scarce. 

Noble Chafer beetle found at Joan’s Hill Farm by Ellie Baggett – Wye Valley AONB

Munsary Nature Reserve’s Road to UNESCO World Heritage Site

Munsary Nature Reserve’s Road to UNESCO World Heritage Site

Learn about why our Munsary Peatlands reserve is being put forward for inscription as the world’s first peatland UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Spotlight on Plantlife’s Three Hagges Woodmeadow Volunteers

Spotlight on Plantlife's Three Hagges Woodmeadow Volunteers

Three Hagges Woodmeadow Site Manager Kara shares what volunteers do, from coppicing to nature surveys, and how you can get involved. 

Lichens: A Beginner in a City
Rob Hodgson with lichen characters

Lichens: A Beginner in a City

Living in Bristol, Rob Hodgson went on his own lichen journey, showing how anyone can go lichen hunting from anywhere.

Why are Plantlife protecting south-west England’s rainforests?

Temperate rainforests are one of Britain and Ireland’s most important habitats. Like any rainforest around the world, they are home to a vast diversity of plants, with some species at risk of extinction as this habitat is their only known home. Temperate rainforest in south-west England tends to be less wet and somewhat warmer than its counterparts elsewhere in the UK, and it is therefore important for a number of ‘southern oceanic’ lichen and bryophyte species that are rare or absent elsewhere in the UK and Europe.

Britain’s temperate rainforests are just as special and spectacular as their tropical cousins but are actually even rarer

In Britain the horsehair lichen Bryoria smithii is only known from two rainforest sites in Devon where its entire population would fit comfortably on two sheets of A4 paper and Arthonia thoriana, an achingly rare comma lichen, is not known from anywhere else in the world other than at Horner Wood in Somerset.

Life after death: rare lichens saved from dying trees

Focusing conservation efforts on what rainforest remains is crucial. Practical conservation on the ground has safeguarded five especially vulnerable rainforest sites across Somerset and Devon by clearing invasive species, letting more light in through the canopy and creating a future generation of veteran trees. In total, 73 hectares of temperate rainforest have been directly managed under the project with a further 162 hectares coming under better management as a result of training land managers across the region. Regionally threatened lichens – including the spectacular and rare Tree Lungwort Lobaria pulmonaria that resembles human lungs – have been successfully translocated from ash trees threatened by Ash Dieback to nearby Hazel, Oak, and Sycamore trees.

Citizen science volunteers rediscovered 15 fragments of lost rainforest

What’s next for our rainforests?

Thanks to the National Lottery players, the National Lottery Heritage Fund (HLF) awarded Plantlife £433,700 to protect the south-west rainforests. The legacy of this project included the release of groundbreaking expert management guidance by Plantlife.

The guidelines, the first interactive, online version to be produced by Plantlife to outline how best to look after these temperate woodlands for the benefit of lichens, ferns and bryophytes (mosses and liverworts) are decades in the making and an output of pioneering conservation work.

These pioneering guidelines will safeguard some of our most rare and threatened lichen communities in the temperate rainforest of Devon, Somerset and Cornwall for the future.

Toolkit for woodland managers

Rapid rainforest assessment guidance

Rapid rainforest assessment survey

Asesiad Coedwig Law Cyflym

Asesiad Coedwig Law Cyflym Fflyrflen Arolygu