At the moment we’re on the chalk grassland. It’s been cropped golf-course short by grazing rabbits. That’s not a bad thing, as their grazing keeps down the dominant coarse grasses, which allows a wealth of wild flowers to bloom in summer. They’ve shut up shop for the moment, but there’s a stark, architectural beauty to the gnarly yew and thorn trees clinging to the slope.
Volunteers keep the scrub down
Jerry and his fantastic team of volunteers, Friends of Watlington Hill and the Green Gym, look after the hill by keeping down the scrub. ‘Scrub is valuable as a habitat for a few species, but the chalk grassland we have at Watlington Hill is the British equivalent of tropical rainforest. It supports a huge range of wild and rare flowers, butterflies and invertebrates, but it’s under threat and would be lost if we didn’t manage the scrub,’ says Jerry.
You might see Jerry and the volunteers in the wintertime, pulling birch seedlings or digging out larger trees and shrubs with mattocks. Work slows down in the spring so as not to disturb nesting birds. Next on their list is a hazel copse that they’d like to bring into a coppicing cycle again. Coppicing is when you cut young trees back to a short stump above the ground. The following spring, the tree sprouts a mass of new shoots which quickly reaches head height.
‘Coppicing was done in the past to produce poles for fencing, hedge laying, firewood and charcoal,’ says Jerry. ‘From a conservation point of view, it also opens up the ground around the tree, letting in the light. You’ll always see a mass of new flowers arrive as if from nowhere when you coppice.’