Heathland brought back to health

An East Devon heathland is being nursed back to health thanks to the work of a leading local wildlife charity.

Clayhidon Turbary nature reserve sits in the heart of the Blackdown Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Its 34 acres are made up of heathland, marshy areas and wet woodland – a series of landscape types that were once common but which have disappeared from much of the English countryside in recent decades.

Clayhidon Turbary was once used by local people who grazed their cattle there and who also cut peat from the site to use as fuel to heat their homes. However, in recent years these uses have declined and the heathland has begun to lose its special character with scrub and young woodland colonising its once open areas. If this situation continued then the area’s special character and wildlife would soon have been lost.

In 2011 Devon Wildlife Trust took on the management of Clayhidon Turbury and made it a nature reserve. In the years since the charity has been using its experience gained at other nearby Blackdown Hills nature reserves to restore the site to former glories. The major breakthrough came when the charity recently gained £34,000 of funding for the nature reserve from Biffa Award - a multi-million pound fund which awards grants to community and environmental projects across the UK.

This has allowed restoration work to begin and the first results are beginning to show.  Devon Wildlife Trust has just completed the installation of a fence around the site. This fence isn’t designed to keep people out but it will keep ponies and cattle in. Ed Hopkinson, the

Nature Reserve Officer for Clayhidon Turbary explains: ‘Without fencing we couldn’t introduce grazing animals to the reserve, and without grazing animals it was impossible to reverse the steady march of invasive young trees and scrub. Removing these by hand is time consuming and costly when ponies and cattle will do it 24 hours for no pay. So having animals here is filling a massive missing piece in our management.’

Biffa Award funding has also allowed Devon Wildlife Trust to buy a vital bit of new equipment in the shape of a scythe cutter. The kit is now allowing Ed to cutback bracken on some of the nature reserve’s steep valley slopes, opening them up to the growth of more delicate wildflowers including lesser butterfly orchids and violets. In turn these plants will encourage insect life including the rare pearl bordered fritillary butterfly. 

Ed is now able to look forward to a brighter future for the nature reserve: ‘I am delighted that Biffa Awards has supported the Devon Wildlife Trust on this restoration project for Clayhidon Turbary. Its future is now secure and the precious habitat and wildlife found here should thrive under our targeted management generously supported by Biffa Awards. But the work doesn’t stop here.’

Over the coming year the project will widen its efforts encouraging greater interest in Clayhidon Turbary by recruiting volunteers to help with future management, installing better footpath access and providing interpretation panels which will tell visitors about the heathland’s history, its wildlife and its future.

For visitors, Clayhidon Turbary nature reserve  can be found by using postcode EX15 3SX or by using these directions: From the M5, exit at junction 26. At the roundabout take the first exit (A38 Wellington) and then at the next roundabout take the first exit (A38 Exeter). Straight on at the next roundabout and follow the road past the Garden Centre and a Retirement Home. Take the left hand turn marked Ford Street. Follow this road back under the M5 and through Ford Street until you come to a crossroad at the top of a hill. Go straight across and follow this road past Heazle Farm and then take the next right. The reserve entrance lies on the right just before the road starts heading downhill through a wooded section.