The Meadowlands

5 July 2025

We had our strongest turnout ever for a site visit when we visited The Meadowlands - around 45 people joined us on a morning that threatened rain.  We gathered to see The Meadowlands, the home of our host Ashley Cooke and his family.  This is a rewilding project that also seeks to conserve existing valuable habitats through traditional farming / conservation such as hay meadows / hay making.  At around 200 acres this is one of the larger land holdings adopting a wilding approach in the Black Mountains and this approach has been in place for the last two years or so.

We walked through fields that showed the traces of previous management - silage, pasture, meadow and wilder, species rich pasture and saw how each is reacting to less interventionist and intensive management.  There is much evidence of regeneration and increasing diversity across the farm and the historic ant hill pastures are beautifully species rich.

There was much discussion of grazing strategies in wilding approaches and how regeneration and grazing can happen together and it was wonderful to see the small herd of White Park cattle who looked very content.

Ashley described his vision for The Meadowlands which will be largely led by natural processes but should include more scrub, wood pasture and more wetlands (we saw the first of a number of ponds to be installed).  Progress at The Meadowlands will be measured against a base line established through bird, insect and botanical surveys.  Establishing a robust base line and monitoring progress is a common problem for many wilding projects.

As always there was much enthusiastic discussion and sharing of ideas over tea when we arrived back at the farm.

We are extremely grateful to Ashley and family for the tour.