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Letter from the estate.......

November 2011

River Restoration – the first phase of the River Adur Restoration Project is now nearly complete, with new meanders adorning the floodplain below Pound Farm. Reg and his team from The Environment Agency were incredibly lucky with the dry autumn, but rain forced them to abort in early November leaving the replacement footbridges on the public footpath and the connections of the river at that point still to do next Spring.

St Catherine’s – the Gift Fayre held at Knepp this year attracted about 1200 people and was hailed a great success by The New Horizons team who use the event to raise money for St Catherine’s Hospice. This year an extra wing of the marquee was put up to make the whole shopping experience a bit more pleasurable, and for all those that work at Knepp we are extremely grateful to have Christmas shopping brought to us each year!

More Charity – Issy’s Fine Cell Exhibition and Auction raised a staggering £100k for her late mother’s charity, Fine Cell Works. Very many thanks go to the committee that Issy set up to invite people to the event and to all those who assisted and gave auction lots for this charitable cause.

Countryfile – Ellie Harrison and a BBC film crew came to Knepp in October to film the River Restoration Project and a little of the Wildland Project. The programme was aired on Sunday 23^rd October and prompted a staggering 23,000 hits on our website during the show.

Big Volunteer Day – about 30 people came to help us on our Big Volunteer Day on the 10^th September. We spent the day working on the main bridleway on and around Sunt Farm pond, which had become badly choked with willows etc. A huge thank you to the loyal volunteers who gave up their day and also to Maureen who again made a fabulous picnic lunch. My dog has finally stopped smelling of bog water!

Access Visits – we hosted two visits on the 11^th and 18^th of September in honor of the Horsham Food Festival, taking the total number of group visits to 23 this year and 516 people. Shipley Primary School have also been to visit us several times and we are pleased to report that visits to Knepp are going to be added to their curriculum. Several groups also visited un-hosted including the Nuthurst Fungi Group who had a fantastic forage through Pondtail Farm in October. Click here for there report.

Such is the success of these group tours that we have invested in a second safari vehicle to cater for smaller groups (up to 9). This Austrian Pinzgauer is 30 years old but goes anywhere and has already been put to great use.

Lake Dredging Project – we are please to report that West Sussex County Councillors voted in favour of their Planning Officer’s recommendation to approve our application to dredge the lake. Works will probably start sometime next summer once the various planning condition have been discharged and the Estate would like to thank the hundred plus people that wrote letters of support for the application, whilst at the same time assuring the objectors, which included Shipley Parish Council, that we will do all in our power to deliver a high quality scheme with as little impact as possible on neighbours.

Meadow Restoration – in the summer we received a letter from a native meadow enthusiast who informed us that a remnant ancient meadow on Pondtail Farm was being overgrown by bramble and trees. We have now put in place a restoration programme for this meadow and hope that our conservation management of the farm will enable the rare plants that survive to spread into adjacent fields over time. Our gratitude to Dave Bangs for bringing this to our attention.

Community Orchard Project – our Apple Juicing Day, beautifully organised as ever by Helen Butler, was an enormous success with the group harvesting and pressing what seemed like several tons of apples to make into delicious apple juice and cider. This year we refined the process by separating the apples into eaters, cookers and juicers with only the sweetest apples going into the juice, which has certainly made for a better blend!

Maintenance Team – our team were treated to a private tour of the stunning Weald & Downland Museum on the 7^th October. Knepp once donated a building to the museum, which we think was part of the Green Street Farm complex, possibly where Green Street cottages now stand. We were shown what was left of the building, which lies in pieces and hope that one day it will be re-erected or perhaps even returned! It was a wonderful opportunity for us all on the Estate to learn more about the buildings that we have under our care and we picked up some incredibly useful hints on how to repair and restore them.

Sawmilling – in the spirit of sustainability and tradition, we try to use our own timber for restoration works on the estate and recently milled not only some oak but also some pine and cherry for repairs. The barn at Tenchford was restored last year using all our own timber and we now hope to convert this into living space for the cottage in the months ahead.

Wildland News – our Advisory Group met in November for a day of discussion that has led to a revised monitoring programme and a potential eco system services study.

The 2011 Newsletter has been written and if anyone would like a hard copy please do call or email the office (at the bottom of this page you can down load the newsletter). It aims to summarise the previous twelve months and those involved in the different aspects of the project have mostly written it this year.

Meanwhile new bulls have been bought for the middle and southern block and these are now grazing the fields outside Shipley. Draco, our wonderful bull in the northern block, won third prize in the senior bull competition in the South East Longhorn Breeders group.

We moved the pigs to the southern block in October and have hired a boar called Hamlet to do his stuff. They have all doubled in size due to the enormous acorn mast!

The Exmoor ponies have all been relocated to the southern block for the time being as we are starting with a new herd in the Knepp Park directly descended from the Anchor Herd, the true Exmoor bloodline.

Meanwhile our fallow deer cull is in full swing in the park and southern block.

We have purchased three ponies from the Camargue to assist us with our cattle work. These animals have spent their lives working with the famous Camargue bulls and hope that they will assist us in our roundups.

Members of Shipley and West Grinstead Parishes joined Jim Seymour from Natural England and others from the Estate to discuss local concerns over the project and these issues were brought forward at the Advisory Group Meeting.

Produce Sales – Our first direct sale of beef via Garlic Wood Farm was a great success, in that we have received some wonderful feedback from customers. We sold the beef in 5kg and 10kg bags, all ready for the freezer, beautifully butchered and packaged by Gil and Paul Martin of Garlic Wood Farm.

Staff News – not really one of ours, but long serving Bakers Farm employee, David Tilley, retired at the end of October. David and his family have a very long association with the Estate and the community and we had a wonderful send off dinner in The Countryman Pub eating some delicious Bakers Farm beef. David has been responsible in the last few years for hedge cutting and topping on the Estate and also helps with the Longhorn Cattle and as he is not moving anywhere, we hope he will remain available if we can tear him away from his fishing rod!

Carp – on the fishing theme, we were delighted to find that we have a very healthy eel population in two of our lakes and we will be harvesting carp in the weeks ahead from all of our lakes and ponds.

Opening Meet – the Opening Meet was as ever held in front of the Castle on the 5^th November. This spectacle was well attended by both mounted and foot followers.

And finally, I forgot to mention that Nancy sat her GCSEs during the summer and stunned us all with her spectacular results. Huge congratulations from us all and apologies for not mentioning this during the summer.