Out and about with the High Weald team – Winter 2024/25

Flying the flag for Natural Beauty

In November, High Weald Co-Director Dr Sally Marsh gave a presentation on Natural Beauty at the Landscape Leaders 24 event in London.

As a fellow of the Landscape Institute, Sally is one of the UK’s leading experts on the subject. Her presentation examined how the term ‘natural beauty’ was understood in the first half of the twentieth century and how useful this interpretation is in meeting today’s challenges.

Hosted by the National Landscapes Association, this inspiring event saw National Landscape Lead Officers and Chairs hear from thought leaders including Perera of Flock Together, Gemma Harper of Joint Nature Conservation Committee, Roger Mortlock of CPRE and Siana Bangura of SOIL Collective.

Gatherings for farmers and land managers

The Land Management team has been busy running events to meet the needs of High Weald’s farmers and land managers, securing leading experts from across the country.

We ran the first ever High Weald Deer Conference on 1 February which was a huge success – learn more about the day here >>

Over the last three months, we have also run sessions on Inheritance Tax planning, starting up a venison business, using LandApp – a digital mapping tool to map help farmers map their land, plan projects and unlock funding, and a farm-based event focused on approaches to hedgerow management.

Find more upcoming events on our dedicated page >>

Discovering lost landscape features in the Upper Rother Valley

For several years, the High Weald team has been encouraging farmers and landowners to use historic maps to see where lost landscape features – such as hedges, ponds, orchards and woodlands – can be restored on their land. This is often a good starting point when considering new features; past locations were often sensible ones!

The team at Wadhurst Park has taken this ethos one step further by creating their own historic features map, and extending it to cover  the entire area around the estate (the Upper Rother). The map has been created by overlaying present-day satellite imagery with the 1870s OS map and is available as an interactive online resource where local farmers can search for lost features on their own holding.

The new map was unveiled at a special event at Wadhurst Park, with High Weald team members on hand to provide advice and guidance on how landowners can access funding to support their habitat restoration plans.

This is a great example of how working collaboratively and sharing ideas and resources can bring benefits at a landscape scale. We’re keen to work with other large landowners on similar projects across the High Weald National Landscape.

High Weald Dark Skies advocates attend National Light Pollution Conference

We’re lucky to have a growing number of community advocates for the High Weald’s starry night skies, many of whom are a key part of our Wild About Dark Skies Festival.

In January, some of those advocates travelled to London together to attend ‘Light Pollution and its Impacts’; a one-day conference hosted by the Royal College of Astronomers.

Members of local community groups Wild Wadhurst and Wild About Ticehurst and local Dark Skies expert Doug Edworthy represented the High Weald, accompanied by our Dark Skies Coordinator Sam Nicholas.

A wide range of organisations were involved in the event, including the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Dark Skies, Buglife, CPRE, Dark Skies Cumbria, Dark Sky UK and Dark Sky International.

It was a great opportunity to hear from other organisations passionate about reducing light pollution and protecting our view of the night sky. Lots of inspiring ideas for our future work here in the High Weald – watch out for more news about this year’s Festival coming soon!