Blog

Saturday 9th May 10:30 – 12:30 Are you interested in recording the photographs of species you take – flowers or wildlife into a National Biodiversity Database? Then…. There is a drop in session on biodiversity data and recording on IRecord and INaturalist with Andy and Gill Stott at The Village Shop, Brockweir,  anytime between 10.30-12.30… Read more: Demonstration Session on The Use of IRecord and INaturalist

Sunday, 3rd May, is International Dawn Chorus Day https://www.rspb.org.uk/whats-happening/news/the-dawn-chorus-all-you-need-to-know-about-natures-big-show, and we are keen to hear the birds in full voice. But it does mean getting up especially early! We will meet at 5am at the Tiddenham Chase car park (on the B4228, signposted Offa’s Dyke (,https://maps.app.goo.gl/xPMMj4opHnnY9w9z9) and not Nag’s Head reserve, as stated earlier). Martin… Read more: Dawn Chorus Walk and Other Parish Grassland Events

Photographs and write up by Mitch Crossingham. Plant list collated by Ruth Stockley and Mike Topp 25th April 2026, walking from the Mackenzie Hall to Apple Acre on Bailey Lane along Old Bailey Lane A beautiful sunny day with plenty of flowers and plants noted – a full list is at the end. We met… Read more: Third First Signs of Spring Walk

Saturday 25 April  10:30 – 11:45 from the Mackenzie Hall car park Join us for a short flower-spotting walk between Brockweir and Apple Acre, Bailey Lane, where there will be tea, biscuits and birdsong. Get ready to join the Parish Grasslands Project for another fun, informative, Signs of Spring Walk! It’s the perfect chance to… Read more: The Third Signs of Spring Walk

Walk leader Gemma Bode. (Photographs Gill Stott) A group of ten braved the sharp showers for the second walk starting at the Mackenzie Hall. The majority of the group were different to last week’s so good to welcome some newcomers. Gemma started by selecting two plants that had managed to escape the car park bank… Read more: Second Spring walk in April Showers

A film showing at The Blake Theatre Monmouth on 9th May 7:30 by one of our PGP members This is a film about the search for a rare butterfly which was co-produced by one of our members,Brockweir-based documentary film-maker Matt Fletcher, will be shown at the Blake Theatre,Monmouth, at 7.30 on 9 May. Matt’s assignments… Read more: Searching For Satyrus

Signs of Spring Walk – Sunday 12th April 2026 at 10:30. Get ready to join the Parish Grasslands Project for another fun, informative, Signs of Spring Walk. It’s the perfect chance to explore nature’s awakening, we will be going on a short walk around Brockweir looking at some of the plants starting to appear, and… Read more: The Second First Signs of Spring Walk

Walk leader, Gemma Bode, plant name recorder, Mitch Crossingham, photographs and web article by Gill Stott March 28th was our first signs of spring walk for this year. Gemma led a group of about a dozen on a short, flower rich walk from the shop car park. After a few steps onto the playing field… Read more: First Signs of Spring Walk 2026

PGP Beaver Talk on 19th March 2026 Rob Cullen – Forest of Dean Waters ManagerStewart Cooper – Forest of Dean Waters Supervisor Rob and Stewart gave a fascinating and highly informative talk on how the hydrology of The Forest is being managed which included a full explanation of the work of their Beaver Project. Part… Read more: Forest Waters – Our Shared Forest

Our first Signs of Spring Walk for 2026 will take place on Saturday 28th March 10:30 – 12:00 starting from the Village Shop, Brockweir Get ready to shake off the winter blues and join the Parish Grasslands Project for a fun, informative, Signs of Spring Walk! It’s the perfect chance to explore nature’s awakening, we… Read more: First Signs of Spring Walk 2026

Compiled by George Peterken, Mike Topp and Sally Secret Below is a record of past Meetings of the PGP 2001-2025, a historical record. If you have any old photographs or memories going back to these meetings and events then please send them to the email on the home page. Thank you! Meetings PGP This inventory… Read more: Past Activities – A record of past meetings and site visits 2001-2025

Our next talk on 19 March 2026, Mackenzie Hall, Brockweir The introduction of beavers at two sites in the Forest of Dean will be the subject of a talk at ameeting of the Parish Grasslands Project at the Mackenzie Hall, Brockweir on Thursday 19March at 7.30pm. The speakers will be Stewart Cooper and Rob Cullen,… Read more: Beavers in the Forest of Dean

There will be a wassail at the Community Orchard at St Briavels Playing Field this Saturday afternoon, 31st January 2026, at 2pm — see the attached poster. It is being organised by the wonderful singers and musicians who played the leading part in making last year’s celebrations such a success. All welcome, come along and… Read more: Wassail St Briavels this Saturday, 29th January

Part 2 of 2 The management advice provided by James McGill following this survey is intended to retain and enhance features that have been identified as valuable for invertebrates. Overall, the site is well managed with light grazing across most areas in late summer. This gives disturbance to the ground, removes old growth, and leaves… Read more: Managing for wildlife at Cutt’s Orchard, implications for similar habitats

Discovering Hidden Biodiversity at Cutt’s Orchard, Brockweir Findings from a report written by James McGill. Summary Report: Andy Stott. Web editing: Gill Stott Site Description Survey Results Part 2: Managing for wildlife Introduction and summary We don’t know what biodiversity we have until we look, that is the lesson. A recent survey at Cutt’s Orchard,… Read more: Invertebrate Survey Results Spring 2025

By Alex Crawley, Grazing Management Ltd. In the rolling landscapes of the UK’s rural heartlands, a quiet revolution in habitat restoration is being driven not by machines or monocultures, but by the hooves of cattle and the sure-footed browsing of goats. At the forefront of this movement is Grazing Management Ltd. Born in the Wye… Read more: Hooves, Habitat and High-Impact Conservation

Do you have a favourite tree? We don’t mean a favourite species of tree, but an individual specimen that you particularly admire. The Parish Grasslands Project is putting together a guide to some of the most notable local trees, and we would like your help. We are asking for suggestions of likely candidates within the… Read more: Tell Us About Your Favourite Tree

Introduction This report summarises a talk delivered to the Parish Grasslands Project Group on 25/10/2025 by Ciaran Clark, Project Manager of Bees for Development, a Monmouth based charity that supports sustainable beekeeping and pollinator conservation around the world. Ciaran outlined the charity’s recent projects both in the United Kingdom and in developing countries such as… Read more: Report on Bee Diversity and Conservation Work by Bees for Development

Wild bees will be the subject of a talk hosted by the Parish Grasslands Project at 2.30pm onSaturday 25 October at the Mackenzie Hall. The speaker will be Ciaran Clark, project managerfor the Monmouth-based international charity Bees for Development. Since March last year hehas been leading the Bees of Monmouthshire Recording Project, which aims to… Read more: On The Trail Of Wild Bees

Gill Stott (thanks to Andy Stott for comments) A group of about 15 met at Tidenham Chase car park on Tuesday evening to join a walk around Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust managed land led by warden Kevin Caster. Kevin is reserves manager for GWT managed land in west Gloucestershire which covers the Forest of Dean and… Read more: July visit to Poor’s Allotment

On Sunday 15th June  the PGP is hosting Dean Meadows Group to visit three of our meadow sites. We hope you will visit all of the sites. However, it is possible to visit some rather than all of them, but please observe the timings below. The aim is to have one group being guided round each site together. Please let me… Read more: A Triple Visit Day Hosting Dean Meadows Group

On Tuesday 1st July we will meet at 7pm at the Tidenham Chase car park  on the B4228 https://maps.app.goo.gl/WLvF3faQXMJeipVG7 Kevin Caster from Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust will take us on a tour of the trust’s three neighbouring reserves: Poors Allotment, Ridley Bottom, and a new reserve for the trust, Simpson’s Meadow. This will be a fascinating opportunity to… Read more: July 1st 2025 – Visit to three local Gloucestershire Wildlife Sites on Tidenham Chase

Our 2022 annual general meeting takes place at the Mackenzie Hall on Thursday 31 March at 7.30pm. After the formal business we have two excellent talks lined up, from local speakers bringing varied perspectives on climate change. Matt Dunwell is concerned that current land management practices are responsible for the loss of organic matter in… Read more: Climate change talks at our AGM

The year was not without its frustrations, to put it mildly, but we were able to end on a high note. December’s online talk by Brigit Strawbridge Howard, held in collaboration with Dean Forest Beekeepers, proved exceptionally popular with members, many of whom got in touch to say how much they enjoyed it. More than… Read more: And so it’s farewell to 2020

We finally held our annual general meeting online about six months after the original date chosen. Before any of us were aware of the words Coronavirus and Covid-19, we had planned to have it in the Mackenzie Hall on a Thursday evening in March, just like any other year. But of course this turned out… Read more: Re-arranged 2020 AGM

It has been a very frustrating year so far for many of us, and at the Parish Grasslands Project that frustration is felt as keenly as elsewhere. No sooner had we launched our Climate Action initiative in February, and the various hubs were holding their first meetings and beginning to lay out all manner of… Read more: Frustrations of 2020

This month we are able to report some good news – sadly a commodity in poor supply currently. A substantial article by George Peterken and Elsa Wood about the wild flora survey of our two parishes has just been published by the prestigious journal British Wildlife. The article traces the changes in the various wild… Read more: Wild flora survey published

The launch of the Parish Grasslands Project’s climate change initiative was reported here last month, and now we have settled on a name for the new operation: Parish Grasslands Climate Action. It now has a presence on the PGP website, as well as its own section in the Village News. In the meantime, the PGP… Read more: Parish Grasslands Climate Action

Sadly we have had a major setback in the community orchard project. Unfortunately, in the light of legal advice, Mary Harris has found it necessary to withdraw her offer of the field near the Wye as the site for the orchard. I know Mary has come to this decision very reluctantly, and I salute her… Read more: Community orchard update

Pollinators in general and bees in particular have declined catastrophically, except in favoured districts that have escaped modern, intensive agriculture. However, in recent years much has been done to research and publicise this decline, with the result that even the Government seems to be about to take it seriously. One problem amongst many is the… Read more: Helping pollinators

I’ve just had a lively three days talking about the Parish Grasslands Project. On Tuesday evening I popped in to the St Briavels Get Together. This is an event at the Pavilion where representatives of local organisations are invited to tell an audience of local people, many of them representing said organisations, about their activities.… Read more: Spreading the word

The Parish Grasslands Project is attempting to set up a community orchard within our two parishes of St Briavels and Hewelsfield & Brockweir. The idea arose from our AGM in March 2017, when Chris Wedge, Natural England’s orchard specialist, gave an inspirational talk on traditional orchards to about 60 members and visitors. Because of the… Read more: Creating our community orchard

Well the grass is well and truly growing now so we thought we should remind you of two options for grazing. The first is Barry Hutchinson’s Red Ruby Devon cattle. If you are a field owner seeking a flexible, sustainable way to manage your land, contact Barry via the Beanhill Herd website at www.beanhilldevons.co.uk The… Read more: Grazing wanted

Following our “orchard” meeting, a member has offered us the chance to take cuttings for grafting from his Arthur Turner cooking apple tree. He says the flavour is equal to that of Bramley apples, and it produces apples from between 12-18 ounces. If you are interested in taking up this offer please let us know.

Wild food was the subject of our October meeting. In the afternoon forager Raoul Van Den Broucke took a party of 15 on a foray in the Hudnalls woods, and they returned with a splendid basket of edible fungi. Our evening session at St Briavels Assembly Rooms began with tastings of the foraged fungi, cooked… Read more: Wild Food

On 14 September 2006 The Hudnalls, an area of dense woodland, tumbledown remains of squatter cottages and old drystone walls in the heart of the Lower Wye Valley Gorge was dedicated as the latest National Nature Reserve.

Time to get creative – here are the details for our recipe competition: Competition for the best-tasting recipe, with the primary ingredient(s) being foraged or ‘wild’ food (all secondary ingredients may come from the store-cupboard). You will be judged on presentation and innovation. Judging will take place at the PGP autumn meeting, from 7pm on… Read more: Wild Food Recipe Competition

It wasn’t so much scenes on the television drama Poldark of a bare-chested hero in action that aroused the PGP’s interest in scything. More the visit to our meeting last October of Simon Fairlie, who has done more than anyone else to maintain interest in this ancient method of cutting grass. Simon’s talk was truly… Read more: Scythe course

The sun shone for us on 4 June, the wildflowers bloomed and you came to Open Fields, when eight meadow sites were open to the public. On the day we measured success with coffee spoons, not to mention biscuits, Welshcakes and doughnuts. When we had had a chance to crunch the numbers we found that… Read more: Open Fields

Foragers are a singular breed, they are saints and sinners both. For those concerned by the disconnect between what we eat and where it comes from, by factory farming, £2 chickens and sluicing the planet in pesticides, then foraging is food purism: principled and with a feather-light footprint. But for those charged with recording and… Read more: Fungi and foraging

Blades were out at the Mackenzie Hall on Saturday 17th October, as were the rakes and the shovels, as the Parish Grasslands Project took on the topic of hand tools for its autumn meeting. We picked our way between assorted sickle-wavers and billhook-brandishers, to learn more about churning butter, turning wood for handles and the… Read more: Give us the Tools – Working the land by hand

Jon Dunkelman, a member of the Monmouthshire Meadows Group, is compiling a field guide to grasslands fungi of the lower Wye Valley. Local mycologist Elsa Wood is providing the fungi expertise and a couple of photographers have been recruited to the team. They are in the midst of their first Autumn surveys, identifying and photographing… Read more: Grasslands Fungi – Field Guide

Once again members of the Parish Grasslands Project made arrangements for children from the St Briavels Play Group and St Briavels School to visit and see the variety of wild flowers growing at Hollyside Farm and to use sweep nets to catch and observe insects which feed on the flowers. On this beautiful sunny morning… Read more: Flower hunt at Hollyside Farm

The evening of 15 May saw a 16 strong group of Grasslanders pay a visit to Gadr Farm, near Trelleck, home to Mr Alan Morgan and his family. The farm is a 160 acre holding of traditional livestock rearing pasture, now managed under the Glastir Scheme (Stewardship if you live east of Offa’s Dyke )… Read more: Gadr Farm visit

We were a full house for the autumn meeting, with near 60 of us packed into the Mac and out of the hail and thunder (contrary to rumours circulating, the committee deny all responsibility for the apocalyptic weather so often accompanying our mini-symposiums… it does boost attendance though). Ursula Williams began proceedings, describing how she… Read more: Autumn Meeting 2014

With the wonderful summer weather, the growth of bracken grasses and flowers in Jean Green’s meadows has been enormous – so much so that the children from the Early Years (St Briavels Playgroup) and the Reception class (St Briavels School) disappeared almost completely as they ran, chasing butterflies and moths, catching grasshoppers and beetles on… Read more: Flower Hunt

Saturday 1 October saw our autumn meeting, this year a mini-symposium on the subject of Water. It was a full house at the Mackenzie Hall with over 60 people packed in to hear the speakers. The PGP’s George Peterken began proceedings, examining the geology and hydrology of the area and explaining that the Hudnalls is… Read more: Water Mini-Symposium

After a spell of dry weather, the Met. Office accurately forecast rain to start at 4.0 clock p.m.on Thursday 27th June in West Gloucestershire. The predicted drizzle intensified and by 6.0 p.m. when 20 stalwarts assembled in the car park on Tidenham Chase there were almost as many brollies as participants. The route for the… Read more: Flowers and Nightjars Walk

Warm, cloudy but, happily dry, the 18th June was the day when 21 pre-school age children from the St Briavels Early Years and 17 from the School’s reception class visited flower meadows at Hollyside Farm, Brockweir Common. The meadows..permanent pasture which has not been artificially fertilised..support an amazing variety of flowering plants from the aptly-named… Read more: Flower Hunt 2013

Our autumn meeting on Saturday 29 October proved to be the most popular we have held in ten years, save only for an even more popular evening on bats a few years ago. With 56 people crammed into the loft of the Village shop we heard a succession of local speakers talk about keeping sheep:… Read more: Sward to Sweater

For a few weeks in the summer of 2011, we placed a map in the village shop to collect deer sightings, and, thanks to 30 or so contributions, we now have a map showing where deer are most often seen. Deer are creatures of woodland margins that retreat into the shadows when they feel danger,… Read more: Deer Survey

The people who arrived to fuel the growth of settlements in the areas of Brockweir and Hewelsfield from around 1830 onwards would have been compelled to maximise the produce from the plots they, in most cases, ‘appropriated’ on the commons (known as ‘encroachment’) and from the natural environment around them. It was simply a matter… Read more: Food from our fields

Sunday May 23rd was a beautiful, hot, sunny day, perfect weather for a relaxed walk around John Josephi’s orchard. Around two dozen people turned up to hear John start by explaining that he had inherited the land from his father, and was continuing to manage it under DEFRA’s Countryside Stewardship scheme. Under this scheme DEFRA… Read more: Orchard Field Visit

The sheep, cattle and horses in our fields have competition. Fallow deer are now common in the district and regularly emerge from cover in the woods to feed in the fields. Wild boar, having been released into the Forest of Dean, have spread to the fringes of the Hudnalls, and we can expect them shortly… Read more: Wild boar and deer on the Hudnalls

On the 4th of March, we held our meeting on field boundaries and their management with about 35 people present. We had invited two outside speakers, both of whom were none too well on the day, but came nonetheless, and we were most appreciative of their dedication. George Peterken introduced the subject with a few… Read more: Field Boundaries

Every year a few molehills appear in our fields, usually in clusters, which I’m told are due to single moles setting up runs and ‘worm-traps’. For a year or two I recorded the distribution of the clusters and found that they were not concentrated in any particular area, so either moles move on or die,… Read more: Moles

Following our AGM on Tuesday 26 February, we held a ‘mini-symposium’ on Orchard Restoration, in which no less than seven contributors, each speaking for 5-10 minutes, gave the 40-45 people present a clear picture of the variety of interest in and experience of orchards locally. John Josephi has an old orchard into which he has… Read more: Orchard Restoration

Last week I went to Shirenewton to talk to the local history society about meadows and traditional haymaking. It was arranged a year ago, but it turned out to be well timed, for Shirenewton village has just acquired land for a village meadow. The village has two centres, separated by small fields, and it is… Read more: Meadows and haymaking in Shirenewton