Latest news from our West Dean Ranger

In the second of an occasional series, Maddy Crews, Estate Ranger writes:

Autumn is one of my favourite seasons. It is a time when nature showcases its incredible artistic abilities. The rich green foliage of summer gives way to a kaleidoscope of warm colours, painting the landscape with shades of red, orange, and golden yellow. The trees become living canvases, providing a breathtaking backdrop to our daily lives.

What is happening on the estate?
When autumn arrives and the sound of wildlife quietens, the sounds of joy from conservation volunteers and slurps of warm drinks, heightens. September through to February is the time when conservation works happen in the countryside, it ensures our spring flush of wildlife has fled the nest during the summer months. Cutting back grasses and scrub in the winter can prepare the ground for rare flowers and butterflies to thrive in the spring and summer of the following year.

Across the estate, there are a number of designated scheduled monuments. Scheduling refers to the legal system which protects nationally important monuments and archaeological remains in England. This winter the estate team in partnership with our forestry contractor, landscape architect and an ecologist, are undertaking vegetation and tree thinning and clearance on some of the monuments to ensure and promote preservation.
With support from Historic England and guidance from Natural England, the careful works to preserve these have started, and by removing scrub and trees from monuments we reduce the risk of uprooting trees and burrowing mammals from causing damage. Across all of the sites, we have worked closely with an ecologist to ensure the works have been carried out in the most sensitive way for wildlife. The timber and brash harvested will be chipped and go into West Dean’s biomass boiler.

Sussex Wildlife Trust reserve at West Dean Woods
The Sussex Wildlife Trust (SWT) local nature reserve at West Dean Woods is a great example of how woodlands were managed in the past, it is managed by a group of SWT volunteers. The hazel, sitting amongst the oak standards, has been coppiced here for hundreds of years and is referred to as coppice in 17th century maps. A ‘standard’ is a tree grown specifically to reach maturity on a long rotation (often 100 years or more), grown from a seedling as opposed to a cut stump and can form as much as 40% of the canopy. The ‘standards’ are normally widely spaced allowing dappled shade to the woodland floor aiding the growth of the coppice crop, boosting soil health, and increasing biodiversity overall.
Coppicing means that areas of hazel are cut to ground level and looked to re-grow; the coppice at West Dean Woods is managed on a 7-9 year cycle to ensure it is the perfect size for the volunteers to cut and use for fencing products.

I recently spent a few days on the reserve, hands-on with bowsaws and billhooks. The cutting and processing of the hazel is undertaken by a dedicated team of volunteers who work in traditional ways to ensure that they cut the material for fencing stakes, binders, hurdles and firewood.

The volunteers work tirelessly throughout the winter to help maintain a disappearing woodland craft and skill, but more importantly, the cycle of cut areas of open woodland respond with incredible displays of violets, primroses, bluebells and various orchid. As well as being aesthetically pleasing, these flower rich areas provide habitats for a vast range of interesting invertebrates. As the hazel grows back the numbers of flowers diminish and after 5 or 6 years the areas are well shaded again. However, the thickening hazel becomes increasingly attractive to birds and mammals who benefit from the coppicing cycles too.

After a well deserved tea and cake break, I got to chat to more of the volunteers. It was fascinating to hear the history of the reserve from those who have been coppicing in West Dean Wood for over 20 years.

Part of the reserve is managed less intensively, and it is there we see unusual and rare lichens, good populations of hazel dormice and the wild daffodils that bloom every spring. It is estimated we have about 2 million wild daffodils (Narcissus pseudonarcissus) on the estate!

Forests for furniture
It was fantastic to have West Dean College students out on the estate recently, furthering their understanding of woodland management and forestry operations. It was great to see students show a real interest in the wider estate and woodland management.

We took the students to three different compartments, including a new woodland planting site where we discussed the considerations and challenges of woodland creation, alongside species selection on the chalky ground where nutrients are naturally poor. We spoke about continuous cover forestry practices, which fulfil the need to protect the landscape's views and preserve habitats while also harvesting woodland for commercial purposes. We looked at a compartment which has recently undergone thinning. This will allow more light to enter the forest floor and boost biodiversity by encouraging natural regeneration, consequently creating a multi generational forest with a greater variety of species.

Finally, the students looked at a compartment due to be thinned this winter and identified features which could potentially be of a furniture building quality. I look forward to welcoming students onto the wider estate in the future

Exploring West Dean - Fancy a walk somewhere new?
West Dean has 21 miles of public rights of way which allow walkers, horse riders and cyclists the opportunity to exercise and enjoy the countryside and fresh air.

Invest in an OS map or take a look at the estate map highlighting the public rights of way. This can be found on the wall of the village shop or in the gardens visitor centre.

(Please remember that West Dean is a working landscape, please keep dogs on lead and remain on public rights of way)


Maddy Crews – West Dean Ranger

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