River-friendly farming at Fordhall

Fordhall is surrounded by water, and it’s certainly lucky this is the case. The river, water meadows, open ditches and spring-fed pools have made the farm home to a menagerie of wonderful creatures – from newts, demoiselles, dragonflies and herons, to otters, kingfishers, snipe and lapwing. The presence of these water sources is valuable to the less wild animals too – the livestock are outside year-round, able to perform their natural bathing behaviours in the summer and hydrate as they please.

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Unfortunately, 2024 surveys showed that the River Tern (the river which marks most of the farm’s land boundary) isn’t doing so well. Upstream run-off has been causing high water nutrient levels, in turn negatively impacting the precious biodiversity seen on-site. While the ponds and streams fared far better, this was enough to inspire a whole new project! The poor state of the UK’s waterways is only too well documented, and so Fordhall is now hoping to become an effective example of ‘river-friendly farming’.

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So, what will this look like?

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While the list is long, and a work in progress influenced by trial and error (something the Fordhall Community Land Initiative [FCLI] team certainly aren’t afraid of!), the current main actions are:

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·        Create cow bathing pools:

o  Livestock accessing watercourses, despite natural, can be quite damaging, and so the plan is to create dedicated spring-fed bathing pools the cattle will be free to use as they please. They deserve a spa day after all! Planting rushes and reeds around these pools will allow the water to be filtered before returning to the river.

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·        Install ram pumps (or similar):

o  This is a traditional technique of using gravity-fed water pumps to fill troughs, therefore reducing how often a watercourse is accessed by livestock to drink.

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·        Plant apple trees along water courses:

o  Fruits will be snapped up by the native water vole, a creature currently threatened by habitat loss, and the tree roots will encourage water to soak into the ground and reduced the volume of water flowing into the river.

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·        Restore the oldest farm pool:

o  Known as ‘Castle Hill Pond’, it will be deepened to hold more water for longer, while transplanting more marsh plants will create and improved habitat.

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As with everything, though, this project comes with a price tag – and as a not-for-profit organisation, the FCLI relies on donations to realise their hopes. The target sits at £15,000 and, the wonderful news is, around £10,000 has been raised since the launch in November! Thank you to everyone who has donated so far.

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Of course, Fordhall maintains that monetary contributions aren’t the be all and end all – registering to volunteer on this project, or spreading the word, are both very valuable actions.

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To find out more about this project and appeal, please visit: www.fordhallfarm.com/RiverFriendly

Francesca Lant, Marketing and Communications Officer