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MENDIP TIMES
Increasing biodiversity at Shiplate Slait WE moved to Shiplate House Farm at Bleadon in the summer of 1987. We then “lambed down” the following February and proceeded with our choice of the Poll Dorset breed to build up our flock of sheep and register as an organic farm. We travelled to North Wales to purchase our wonderful tri-coloured sheepdog, Bess, who faithfully worked our flock. In 1988, we purchased our hill land Shiplate Slait, which is listed as a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI). We therefore decided to go into stewardship to help care for this special piece of land, with the support and advice of Avon Wildlife Trust and Tom Lane, English Nature. The plan was designed to carry out scrub management as well as to facilitate appropriate grazing with Shetland ponies. Shiplate Slait is calcareous limestone grassland meaning there is an array of wildflower species, including mouse-ear chickweed, purple orchid, dwarf sage, dropwort, fairy flax and lady’s bedstraw. One of our concerns were the turkey oaks and holm oaks as they are invasive species which needed to be removed with such methods as ring barking.
Avon Wildlife Trust has worked to scallop areas such as gorse, which in turn provide valuable habitat and maximise shelter for a variety of species. This rotational plan has encouraged the living seedbank to flourish especially in the spring and summer months. We have worked on the B-Lines Project with the support of the trust, in which the permanent wildflower-rich habitat links existing wildlife and pollinators to create a network of “biodiversity lines” across the landscape. We have also planted a traditional Somerset orchard with cider apples such as Slap me Girdle, Horay Morning, Somerset Redstreak, Varlington Mill and many more. We have therefore made the most of our apples with cider making, apple and raisin wine and of course the annual Wassail, Volunteers starting work on the wall
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Jane with the dry stone wall
where hats and beards are worn by all! We have so enjoyed welcoming the volunteers from Avon Wildlife Trust and have kept a log of all the comments from “your hill is awash with flowers and I look forward to working here again” and “great views from your hill and thank you so much for the homemade flapjack”. We have met an amazing array of people including volunteers carrying out fungi surveys, those that have visited year after year and one we affectionately named “the butterfly man” who came to identify and log the small blue, orange tipped, grizzled skipper, and marble white to name but a few. They all had to mention our Shetland ponies as one could open zips and be off with your lunch, so it was advised to hang all rucksacks in a tree! In 2018, we started to rebuild our Mendip dry stone wall, which we are still working on, and have completed 170m with the trust. Once completed our son, Tim, will be inserting a “time capsule” so that we can celebrate everyone who has been a part of the rebuild with pictures and comments as well as being inscribed with “Avon Wildlife Trust”. We have had sightings of adders on our hill and whilst I am still in search of their place of shelter, the dry stone wall will provide shelter for vertebrates and invertebrates to live. Without the trust’s support, advice and expertise, we would not have been able to secure the biodiversity of our SSSI grassland for generations to come. Jane Jay
