After a torrential downpour last month, one of our veteran trees finally gave up the ghost. The tree stood next to the road half way up Kidds Hill and was estimated to be around 200 years old which made it one of the oldest on the forest. Many large trees were felled for the war effort during WW1 but this behemoth survived the cull somehow. The old tree had a lot of character, having been pollarded several times during its long life. During my first weeks at Ashdown Forest, one of my colleagues showed me the curious secret hidden in one of trees’ deep crevices: a “mummified” squirrel. It see ..read more

My name is Duncan Thatcher and I work for the Conservators of Ashdown Forest as part of the Countryside Team. I joined in September 2017 and since then I have started to get to know the Forest, its scenery, its wildlife and its people. It has been six months of wonder. After five years of trying, I am finally in my dream job. Working in a landscape of grandeur – sometimes having to pinch myself that I’m actually still in the South East of England. The landscape in winter is so wild, so gloriously bleak at times it reminded me of the moors of North Yorkshire or the foothills of the Cumbrian Mo ..read more

Right, so this is going to be my last blog for Ashdown Forest! I’m leaving to go on an adventure that even I’m not sure is actually happening until it starts, so I’d better make sure I go out on a good one! First of all though, I must return to a recurring theme about dogs on the Forest. Yet again there has been a brutal attack on a sheep over the weekend which killed the sheep. The animals on Ashdown Forest are there to graze the heathland to create the best conditions for the rare wildlife that survives on lowland heathland sites. Please, for the sake of the livestock and the wildlife on th ..read more

I went out yesterday to answer a question that had been on my mind for a while; do we still have Early-purple orchids on Ashdown Forest? As part of my job I monitor a number of the rarer plant species on the Forest, of which several are orchids, but the Early-purple had not been, until now, on my list. There are records from 20 years ago, with a grid reference, so armed with a GPS I blundered about in the woods for a while, concerned that the habitat didn’t look at all suitable. And then, as almost always happens, just as I was about to give up I spotted three tall, purple spikes in the dapple ..read more

OK, so where to start? Well here’s something that we keep seeing all over Ashdown Forest. So, yes – not that pleasant but it’s something we find an awful lot. Apart from dog poo not being nice to look at the knock on effects can run a lot deeper. In previous blogs and posts on Facebook, the problem of dogs attacking livestock on the Forest has been pointed out. In this blog I want to highlight the sensitive wildlife the dogs can disturb by not being under close control. Lowland heathland, which is the majority of Ashdown Forest, is a nutrient poor habitat and many of the plants have evolved t ..read more

This isn’t really much to do with what we’ve been up to recently but this is a sweet little arch hidden away at the bottom of Marden’s Hill near St. Johns, Crowborough. That arch is near where we’ve been working though and this photo is a bit more descriptive of what we’ve been doing recently. This is a view of the valley that is the target of our winter heathland clearance this year. What that means essentially is that we are clearing the small trees growing up through the heather, predominantly Silver Birch, Common Oak and Scots Pine, so that the heathland does not get overgrown with trees ..read more

Because I think it deserves it, here again is a photo of the poor sheep that was attacked by a dog and again another reminder to keep your dog on a lead or under close control whilst you are in the grazing enclosure. Following on from that, we’re in time of year again where many yellow flowering plants are in flower, so here is a rerun of a blog I did two years ago about said plants. Most of the Ragwort we are pulling up is Common Ragwort, which can grow to about a metre and has yellow flowers. Common Ragwort (Jacobaea vulgaris) has the potential to spread over disturbed or poached soil and ca ..read more

Hello all. Not really sure what season we’re in right now, but I thought I’d start with something that is becoming more and more of a problem on the Forest. This is one of the sheep from the large grazing enclosure on the Forest and it has been attacked by a dog. This came limping up to us one day and obviously has many injuries, particularly to her front right leg, the back of her head and throat. This is why we ask dogs to be kept under close control or on a lead while on Ashdown Forest. Dogs found bothering livestock or attacking sheep can be shot. For people who are worried about their do ..read more

We’ve had a few such comments ever since we stopped cutting the area of grass immediately in front of the Information Barn. The truth is that, no – we haven’t suffered a catastrophic failure of our trusty mower; we’ve sown a native meadow. Wildflower-rich grasslands found across the Weald are an important habitat and an attractive feature of the landscape. The decline in the area covered by these special grasslands has become a serious threat to biodiversity. With this in mind, the Weald Meadows Initiative and others have been active in encouraging both farmers and non-farming landowners to ma ..read more

So it’s been warm, freezing cold and, after a little warm period,  the cold has come back. That being said, we have been as prepared for it as we can be by having quite large bonfires; here you will see one of our volunteers, Dan, demonstrating his method for drying out his gloves over the fire. Most of our recent work has been over at Payne’s Hill near Fairwarp where we have been clearing any encroaching scrub regrowth from an area of heathland. We’re not removing every tree in the area and this Sweet Chestnut I am quite fond of just because of its profile. Wandering round there, though ..read more