Warleigh Nature Reserve, Bath

Aim

Bath's largest rewilding project has begun at Warleigh Nature Reserve, right on the River Avon. Full of beavers, zero funding.

Ignore what that says about being "successful funded", we need to get this crowdfunder to £50,000 so we can get this nature reserve rolling. There's so much work to do and our coffers are low.

History

Protect Earth has bought a new site, an 84 acre nature reserve in Bath. Our goal as always is to improve biodiversity, increase carbon sequestration, and improve water quality, and here we can even help reducing flooding of homes and businesses along the river from Bath through Keynsham and Saltford to Avonmouth.

In November 2024 we successfully raised £90,000 on Crowdfunder, purchasing the amazing piece of land south of Bath that's been on the market for years. We are now calling it Warleigh Nature Reserve as it sits right in the village of Warleigh and was part of the old Warleigh and Claverton Estate which has history back to Roman times. The nature reserve will establish new woodland, restore old wetland, and improve rare calcareous grassland. We cannot wait to get started now that the land purchase has completed after a protracted two year battle that cost us a huge amount of time and money.

Whilst the main land purchase of 70 acres dragged on, we took the amazing opportunity to purchase a second piece of land directly next door, to expand the nature reserve up to 81 acres. Hazel Wood (pictured above in yellow) is a glorious 11 acre chunk of ancient woodland, part of the larger Warleigh Wood. It has huge potential, but desperately needs some intervention to bolster biodiversity and bioabundance after too little management and too much deer grazing for decades.

Purchasing the original 70 acres was supposed to be supported by the government, with Trees for Climate funds potentially contributing 50-100% of the £480,000 needed to buy the land. After a lot of chin scratching, and after our crowdfunder hit its target, the government brilliantly decided to contribute 0%, because we didn't want to force trees onto the wetland and grassland areas that absolutely should not have had trees planted on it.

In order to do the right thing by this land we decided to pivot, and instead the previous Crowdfunder funds going towards establishment work as we hoped, the entire £90k went towards the land purchase. The remaining £390k came from wiping out our charity's "Land Fund", most of our cash reserves that were hoped to cover expanding our staff beyond our skeleton crew of volunteers, and lots of other generous contributions from donors up and down the valley and further afield.

Work to be done

Once the purchase of Warleigh was completed the Protect Earth team couldn’t wait to get started. The public footpath was muddy, slippery and dangerous so we reopened an old vehicle track which we believe was a public footpath in the past. We have removed a lot of chicken wire, barbed wire, broken pallets and other rubbish. A handful of dead Ash trees which were over areas where volunteers congregate were removed for safety.

We've also begun bringing the historic hazel coppice back into rotation, to improve light to the woodland and help the woodland flowers thrive, and improve structure in the woodland for a variety of wildlife.

There are already two colonies of beavers on the land, and we need to improve their ecosystem first and foremost. They're struggling with the flood waters living in the river bank and their kits are dying, so we're already started creating leaky dams (aka "beaver dam analogues") and planting willow and alder around them, hoping they'll come along and maintain these dams for us.

Everything so far has been done with our amazing community of local volunteers, neighbours, and friends from Bristol to Bradford on Avon, turning up by train, bus, bicycle, and walking in miles, so we do also need to improve a slippery 4x4 track to get a little bit of parking in place to for those having a harder time getting to the volunteering.

Once nesting season was upon us we switched to focusing on the critical work of ecological surveys, getting bird monitoring boxes up, planning, grant applications, and come September we will be back to improving trails for the community, digging ponds, improving beaver habitat further, seeing if we can increase water retention and make a second channel for the river Avon, and hire all sorts of contractors to do all sorts of important jobs like removing miles and miles of barbed wire from the land. 

The surveys begin late April (costing us £3,000!) and the barbed wire is not going to be cheap. With our cash reserves wiped out by the purchase we are calling on the community to help us out one more time, so we can focus on the work at hand.

What do we need

Whenever we get a new bit of land it always feels like there isn't much we need, then things start to build up. A few bird boxes. A few benches for walkers to rest on. A few gates here and there to restrict illegal motorbike access. Renting a woodchipper now and then. Hiring some contractors. Soon you're into the thousands, and with a few sites already struggling for resources (latest quote was £1,000/year for dog bin collections in High Wood!) we want to make sure we can do everything that needs doing at this site to maximise our impact.

Some of this is needed immediately, some we can muddle on without for now, but the ecological surveys need to begin in April and the wildlife boxes and cameras would be better up sooner rather than later. 

The Himalayan Balsam bashing throughout spring will also benefit from some volunteer infrastructure. A temporary kitchen galley with wood sourced from invasive trees in Hazel Wood. This will provide the mandatory "welfare unit" without needing to rent a horrible plastic portacabin and churn the land getting it in and out. A solar generator will help us stay fossil fuel free, something we achieve 90% of the time with electric chainsaws, strimmers, and vehicles.

All of this will also help us run heritage & bushcraft skills sessions, with everything from hurdle making, hedgelaying, scything, charcoal/biochar making, and basket weaving, which will help us pay for the work that needs doing on site, and help keep these important skills alive.

What do you get?

- Everyone who sponsors will be getting a certificate showing a sponsorship square in our wetland and ancient woodland. If you come along to some volunteering events or its near the public footpaths you can go and visit your square! 

- Larger donations can get you a free place on one of our skills courses, or one of our guided ecology walks throughout spring and summer.

Get in touch!

Please support us get this amazing project on the road, and if you have any questions we're always up for a chat:

E-mail: [email protected]

Phone: 0300 302 0065‬

Funding method

Keep what you raise – this project will receive all pledges made