The Eco Rother Action visit to South Holt Farm on Sunday 8th June was blessed by good weather, and it was glorious to stand on the South Downs looking out over expanses of fields that have been left to wildlife, with views of Langstone Harbour and the Isle of Wight in the distance, listening to Harvey Jones explain his ideas about re-wilding, whilst a skylark serenaded from on high!
PeCAN Trustee Liz Bisset tells us more...
Farmers Harvey and Amanda bought South Holt Farm five years ago and since then, they have purposefully left it uncultivated. They certainly aren’t farmers in the conventional sense of the word as they have no intention of growing food for humans, instead they bought the farm to re-wild the land to provide a sanctuary for wildlife.
They own a small herd of cattle but not for dairy or meat production, instead these animals are for grazing, which is helping to change the previously cultivated fields from a near-desert in terms of wildlife, into a rich mosaic of scrub and open grassland. This process inevitably takes time and is not for the impatient. Results do not happen overnight but it was clear that change was taking place and the huge rolling field that we first walked through had some of the remnants of cultivation to be expected but also evidence of many native species and grasses starting to find their place again on the thin chalk soil.
As we walked, a small group of roe deer looked up from grazing in the long grass and startled, bounding off up to the hedge line. There are several fenced-off enclosures dotted around the farm which are being used to research the effect of the deer on vegetation. From what we saw there was little difference between what was growing inside and outside the fence. Harvey told us that they do sometimes cull fallow deer, which are also present, but he doesn’t believe that they pose as much of a threat to young trees as has been suggested, especially to trees that are not intended for timber and hence don’t require straight unbranched stems.
The whole project is something of an experiment, as re-wilding is still in its infancy and there will never be a single pattern to follow, with so many variables such as soil type, aspect, previous treatment of the land etc, involved. The couple are receiving advice and support from many expert sources, such as the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust, Hampshire County Council’s Biodiversity Information Centre, the South Downs National Park and other farmers and landowners who have embarked on the same re-wilding path - but it is very much a question of trial and error. Local wildlife groups come regularly to monitor the wildlife and record the species they find.
The farm is run as a charity and in fact there are no obvious sources of income - only drains on funds, as fences have to be maintained, grazing cattle fed, public footpaths (of which there are quite a few) mowed. There are funders though and the farm is part of Portsmouth Water’s Nitrate Intervention Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) scheme which is helping farmers to reduce nitrate leaching and improve farming efficiency. Nitrates, generally from applied fertiliser, can leach through the chalk and into the aquifers ending up at Bedhampton Springs and resulting in unacceptable levels of nitrate in our drinking water.
They have also entered into an agreement with Portsmouth Water to re-wild 80 hectares as compensation for some of the ancient woodland lost in the building of the new Havant Thicket Reservoir. This agreement gives a guarantee of funding for the next 80 years. Wonderful that it is seen as such a long-term project in terms of providing an income, but Harvey is not holding his breath since we have seen many funds to support farmers and landowners come and go in the past five years since Brexit.
As we walked further on to the farm, we were shown the remnants of an ancient woodland, part of Markwells Wood, which until only recently was under threat of oil exploration. In the 1960s the Forestry Commission had blitzed quite a large area with Agent Orange and planted Norway Spruce, Corsican Pine and Western Red Cedar in place of native woodland as part of a dream to make the UK self-sufficient in timber. Those plantations were still there when Harvey took over the farm and once he owned them, his first move was to get a licence to fell the Norway Spruce. The timber provided some income but more importantly the land has been opened up for native species to re-generate.
There is no knowing whether the woodland will ever develop in the same way as the ancient woods as circumstances such as soil, disturbed by the planting, and climate have changed, but eventually the hope is that native woodland with some open grassland will establish. We saw various saplings poking up through dense brambles, receiving protection from deer from their prickly neighbours. When they are stronger, the grazing cattle may be sent in, to clear the brambles and allow more wildflowers to establish. The Corsican pine plantation has been thinned but was delightfully shady after the hot sunshine and there were plenty of shrubby hazels and other small trees thriving under the partial shade of the tall pines.
The path then led along the top of a wooded slope where we found magnificent old yew trees and some huge beech trees, opening out to give us a view across the Idsworth valley where more pasture land dotted with cowslips already setting seed, sloped down to the road below. It was another example of minimum human intervention and nature flourishing. We feasted our eyes on the view before returning to the old farmyard where there are two huge old barns, in the past used to store the crop before threshing it. They are in a state of disrepair and could be rejuvenated, however, wildlife is at the forefront of the plan and measures to help non-human organisms will always take priority where Harvey is concerned.
South Holt Farm’s 750 acres are certainly a very lovely slice of England’s green and pleasant land and all because of the vision of Harvey and Amanda. We thank them for inviting us to visit and share their vision and we hope to re-visit them in the future.