|
Family
News – Charlie
& Issy hosted a magical memorial for Sir
Raymond on 3rd September attended by 80 of
the family and friends. In an
extraordinary act of nature, it started
raining from an almost cloudless sky just at
the point when Drew, Catherine and Charlie
were planting a tree by the lake for their
late father.
10th
Bt – with
the passing of Sir Raymond, Charlie becomes
the 10th Baronet in his family, a
title first bestowed on his ancestor Sir
Charles Raymond who lived in the 18th
century.
Wildland Project – With
the official go-ahead from Natural England
in mid September, work has now started in
earnest to fence the third enclosure – a
1000 acre block of predominantly former
arable land on the south west corner of the
estate.
Local residents who bound the fencing
are being individually sought out to discuss
detail, and other resident groups have been
in discussions regarding enhanced access and
amenity.
Poor PR - It is
fair to say that despite our attempts to be
entirely open (website, parish newsletters,
access visits), we have been accused of
managing our PR badly with local residents
– probably a symptom of the fact that we
rely heavily on the feedback of friends,
employees and contractors who live in the
parish, but whose opinions don’t match
everyone’s.
We are working all the time to further improve our PR.
More public access – we
are planning to create additional footpaths,
bridleways and open access areas as part of
the Wildland project, to create a network of
link routes for local residents and the
wider public.
We are liaising with Darren Rolfe,
Dial Post resident and WSCC Access Ranger
over these, and also with Shipley Parish
Chair David Meadows.
Weeds – For those
that hate to see weeds, or just don’t want
them blowing onto their land, we are putting
the finishing touches to a new policy that
will ensure that we manage our boundaries
within the law without compromising our
ecological grazing project.
This will be posted on this website
by Christmas.
Animals – Into the
new park next Spring will be our stunning
longhorns, fallow deer, tamworth pigs and
Exmoor ponies.
The herds are all increasing and the
new space will allow them to expand without
compromising their grazing.
This is a huge enclosure and in many
areas the vegetation has already romped
away, so we do have plans to purchase more
animals in early 2009 to supplement our
existing stock.
Wildlife –
woodlarks and barbastelle bats are the
latest species to be found at Knepp enjoying
the incredible wildlife habitat that is
evolving on our regenerating farmland.
Elsewhere on the estate….
Baby news –
Congratulations to Melanie & Jason
Emrich on the birth of No. 2; baby Edward
was born on 17th October.
Staff news – Congratulations to Simon Hillery the estate’s gardener & his beau Leslie who are
engaged & also to our new recruit Pat
Toe who wasted no time in proposing to Sara!
Welcome Back – to
Helen Butler who is helping out in the
garden.
This is the third time Helen has
worked for us – first looking after
calves, then milking sheep , and we are
delighted to have the opportunity of having
her back on the estate.
Property – Like
the rest of the world, we are reining back
expenditure & bracing for depression.
Our granary office project is now on
hold having completed the groundworks –
our thanks to Mark Lovis and his team for
working throughout this grim summer up to
their armpits in mud underpinning and
stabilising this old barn. It’s not all
gloom though - Cuckoo Barn’s restoration
is in full swing & due to be completed
early in the new year, and our team have
done a great job renovating another cottage
at Floodgates.
Meanwhile all four lodges at the west
entrance have been re-roofed, and for those
who think the tiles are a bit bright –
that’s the colour of the original clay
tiles before they greened up.
Petty vandalism
– Many thanks to mid Sussex community
police for becoming involved after new
fencing on the estate’s land at Cuckfield
was vandalised.
We are still at a loss why someone
took offence to the new stock fence –
perhaps the top strand of barbed wire
snagged a local resident’s sleeves when he
was fly tipping his garden waste onto our
land!
Charity Events
– The New Horizion’s Appeal for St
Catherine’s Hospice had a fantastic fayre
in September.
The weather was perfect thank
goodness, as parking was on the polo ground
thanks to the piggies digging up the normal
car park!
Meanwhile 30 Stedham Anglers held
their Richard Morgan Fishing in aid of
Macmillan Cancer Support contributing
towards their £3000 of fundraising for this
charity.
Other events
& visits – Dial Post residents were shown
around the “parks” in October to see for
themselves what is install for their back
yard when animals are introduced into the
land around the village – we hope we won a
few friends and some of the myths were
dispelled. I doubt one long term resident (you will remain
nameless Joe!) will ever be satisfied until
we re-employ at least 90 people on the
estate in agriculture and building, albeit
far more than that number work on the estate
in private businesses in former agricultural
buildings.
We had 11 other
tours this year from schools, eco groups to
Young Farmers and were glad to show about
250 people around the estate in bespoke
groups.
Cattle – Our
annual round up of the cattle went well and
thankfully our herds remain TB free.
We used the round up to send to
slaughter a wonderful 4 year-old steer as
further “product development”.
In conventional systems, cattle are
generally slaughtered for beef under 30
months old, but we found last year that our
animals which receive no supplementary feed,
just weren’t “finished” at this age,
so we left one for a further year.
The results are still being assessed
but there is no doubt that the quality of
the meat is to the highest standard. Beef will be the principle produce from the Wildland project
in the future and it is essential that we
make the best of it in terms of marketing
and brand development.
Cocoa Loco
– In these difficult times, how great to
be broadcasting good news about one of the
businesses that occupy premises on the
estate – Sarah & Rory Payne’s Cocoa
Loco “producers of a wondrous array of
handmade brownies, cookies, bars and all
things chocolaty” have won The Times /
Soil Association Organic Food Awards.
For more info www.cocoaloco.co.uk
Watery Projects
– Charlie attended a grant bid in
Nottingham – the HQ for Biffa to hopefully
secure funding for our River Adur
restoration project.
The bid is being spearheaded by the
Sussex Wildlife Trust and supported by the
Environment Agency and will see 2½ km of
the Adur and 70 acres of it’s floodplain
naturalised. Elsewhere on the estate, John Whiting’s River Adur
Conservation Society have helped recreate
localised areas of nature habitat on the
floodplain, and we hope in the future that
local residents might like to join in with
this group and others that carry out
volunteer projects on Knepp.
|
