About Eleven neighbours and a wet field
A field nobody wanted, and what we did.
Fieldwork is a registered charity run by people who live in the valley. We lease or buy land that has been drained, mown or sprayed bare, undo the damage, and count what comes back.
Promise Three things we always do
Open to walk. Published in full. Handed on.
- i
Every site is open
Footpaths stay open all year, dawn to dusk. We ask you to keep to the marked routes so ground-nesting birds can settle.
- ii
Every survey is public
Survey sheets go online in full, including the years that look poor. We would rather you see a bad spring than a tidy story.
- iii
Land passes on
Mature sites move to a local land trust with a covenant that keeps them wild for 125 years. The money we free up goes to the next field.
History Nine years, three sites
How the work grew.
2017
A lease and a spade
Eleven neighbours pool savings to lease a waterlogged field at the bottom of the valley. The first job is clearing old ditches by hand.
2019
First trees at Willowbank
Alder, oak, hazel and bird cherry go in on the valley floor, grown from seed collected within five miles.
2021
Bracken Mere starts
Forty-one drainage grips are blocked by hand and six scrapes are dug. The water table rises by thirty centimetres.
2022
Plastic comes out
We stop using plastic tree guards. Deer fencing is wooden and is due to come down in 2030.
2023
Little Harth is sown
A former silage field is sown with yellow rattle to weaken the rye grass that had taken over.
2026
Eighty-six hectares
Three sites and 1,140 members across the valley. The next field is already on the survey list.
Method How a site recovers
Less tidying.
More listening.
-
Year 0
Walk it first.
Before a spade goes in, we spend a full year recording what is already there: soil cores, water levels, breeding birds, the plants in every hedge. Neighbours tell us what the field used to be.
-
Year 1–2
Make one big change.
Usually that means blocking drains, ending fertiliser or changing when we mow. One change at a time, so we can tell what worked. Seed and saplings come only from the valley.
-
Year 3–10
Step back and count.
Same transects, same dates, every season. Grazing ponies from Harth Farm do the mowing. We intervene less each year, and publish every survey sheet in full.
-
Year 10+
Hand it on.
Mature sites pass to a local land trust with a covenant that keeps them wild for 125 years. The money we free up goes to the next tired field.
Team Who does the work
Few staff.
Many hands.
Most of the hours come from volunteers, from Harth Farm and from the people who walk the sites every week.
-
Rowan Pike
Ecologist and survey lead
Runs the spring and autumn transects, trains volunteer surveyors and writes every report.
-
Marisol Hesketh
Site manager
Plans the work mornings, keeps the tools in order and knows where every culvert runs.
-
Bryony Askew
Chair of trustees
Chairs the board and lives two fields from Bracken Mere. She walks it most mornings with her dog.
Visit Come and walk a site
Walk it with
us first.
Every site is open all year. The field office can send you a survey sheet and a map before you go.
See the three sites