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Neroche Landscape Partnership Scheme

Summary of activity- August 2008

The Neroche Landscape Partnership Scheme is a diverse conservation, access, community and skills programme running from Autumn 2006 to Spring 2010. The Scheme covers 35 square miles of the northern part of the Blackdown Hills AONB, spanning the border of Somerset and Devon.

The Scheme was awarded a total of £2 million by the Heritage Lottery Fund, which taken with match funding from partners has provided a total Landscape Partnership Fund of £2.95 million.

The Lead Partner for the Scheme is the Forestry Commission. The key partners comprise the two County Councils, three District Councils, Natural England, the Blackdown Hills AONB, The National Trust, the Somerset Wildlife Trust, and Somerset Art Week Ltd. The LPS is governed by a Partnership Board comprising the key partners and members of a Local Stakeholders Group. Delivery of the Scheme is led by a core team of seven staff employed by the Forestry Commission and based with the Blackdown Hills AONB Partnership in Hemyock.

The Neroche Scheme encompasses a total of 23 separate projects whose collective aims are: • • •

To invest in the natural, built and cultural heritage of the area To make the landscape more accessible to everyone To improve people’s ability to sustain the qualities of the landscape

Although currently funded only until 2010, the Neroche Partnership is looking to the future and is developing proposals to sustain its activities and impact towards a further horizon of 2015.

Neroche Office 01823 680846 www.nerochescheme.org

Neroche Herepath Trails The Neroche Scheme is developing a 40 km (25 mile) network of connected multi-use trails to enable people to explore and enjoy the diversity of the north Blackdown Hills landscape off road. The network will comprise two circular trails, one in the west and one in the east of the project area, and a linear route linking them together.

Following existing public rights of way and including some newly developed stretches, the trails are designed to be used by walkers and riders, with some sections suitable for cyclists, and some built for use by those with restricted mobility. The new trails have been given the name ‘Herepaths’ - the Old English word for ‘peoples highways’ that were originally important trackways between settlements during the ninth century.

After major surface and drainage improvement work to existing bridleways, the first Herepath Trail around Staple Fitzpaine was opened in May 2008. The Staple Fitzpaine Herepath forms a continuous 22km (13.5 mile) loop taking in a wide variety of wildlife and historical sites. Further improvements to some stretches are continuing.

The response to the new Trail, especially from local horse riders, has been very positive, and the route is already becoming a favourite destination for many people. Users can download trail maps from the Neroche website, and a trail leaflet will be published shortly.

Digital Trail Guides To accompany the Staple Fitzpaine Herepath, Neroche is developing an innovative new approach to providing information about the trail, without the use of noticeboards and interpretation panels.

The new Digital Trail Guides, being trialled this autumn, will be available for hire from the Farmers Inn at West Hatch. They will contain a GPSenabled trail map, and a menu of information relating to wildlife and local history.

Users will be able to enhance their walk or ride by listening to recordings of local residents talking about their recollections of the area, experts describing features of the route, with specially produced animations to enliven the information. There will be birdsong recordings, and illustrations of trees and flowers on the route.

For events and area information, visit

www.nerochescheme.org

Forest Beef A major innovation of the Neroche Scheme is the programme to replace conifer plantation over about one third of the Forestry Commission holding, in favour of a network of open space and broadleaved woodland, designed to increase the diversity and resilience of wildlife habitats in the forest. Conifer has been removed from areas which previously carried open heath, pasture and mire, and rough grazing is being introduced to enable these habitats to re-establish.

A series of large fenced grazing units have been created in the forest, and grazing is underway, using a herd of English Longhorn cattle purchased by the Forestry Commission with Lottery funds for this purpose.

The Longhorn herd, currently numbering just over 60 head, are being managed by Chris Salisbury, who farms at Bickenhall. In return for his investment of time, Chris will be seeking to finish surplus animals from the herd as it develops, and market the resulting meat as Forest Beef, through local outlets.

It is hope that this programme will provide a long term sustainable economic return, while benefitting wildlife such as the Marsh Fritillary butterfly, and making the forest and its wildlife better able to adapt to the pressures of climate change.

A Classroom made of Trees Neroche is developing the Forest School approach to outdoor learning, working with twenty primary and secondary schools in and around the area to build the approach into mainstream school life. Forest School is a much-praised technique which uses woodland settings for delivering many aspects of the curriculum, while building self-esteem and team working abilities in young people.

Some 25 teachers are being trained through the project to become qualified Forest School Practitioners, and arrangements are being made with local woodland owners to enable schools to adopt woodland sites within walking distance of their school grounds, for regular use as Forest School classrooms.

For events and area information, visit

www.nerochescheme.org

Jane Mowat

Art in the Landscape Neroche is working with a range of local artists to use sculpture, music, storytelling and multimedia techniques to tell the story of the Blackdown Hills landscape.

Lead Artist Michael Fairfax is creating ephemeral natural sculptures in the forest as a way of involving new audiences, while storyteller Jane Flood and musician Fiona Barrow are working with community groups and schools to reinterpret local folklore and music for a modern setting.

A culmination of this work will be a new annual event for the Blackdowns – Punkie Night – in November this year. Punkie Night is the old Somerset name for Halloween, and the event will be a celebration of local traditional tales and of the land, with a lantern procession through the forest.

Revealing Local History Castle Neroche is a centrepiece of the area, and through the Neroche Scheme a set of specially commissioned interpretation panels are being created, to illustrate the Castle’s ancient history. Reconstruction drawings by David Lawrence will describe our understanding of the phases of occupation of the site.

Meanwhile the Neroche Community History Project is enabling a wide range of people to explore their local history, through new local history groups, field work training with English Heritage, and high tech surveys such as the newly commissioned LiDAR (laser) survey of the whole Neroche area, which reveals hidden features of the land surface such as the little-known earthwork on Orchard Hill.

Also through the project, a major community excavation at Bickenhall starting in September will reveal more about the medieval history of the Portman Estate.

For events and area information, visit

www.nerochescheme.org