Funding received from the Countryside Stewardship Scheme has enabled initial restoration and maintenance plans for Panshanger Park – as highlighted in the 10 year anniversary story – to be implemented, starting with new sustainable fencing.
This addition to the park will be used to expand the grazing areas for the longhorn cattle, who play a vital role in maintaining different habitats. In grasslands, they help control the more aggressive plant species that could otherwise dominate these parts, providing wildflowers with a better chance to thrive and disperse.
By laying down and trampling the vegetation, the cattle allow seedlings to establish, making more suitable spaces for insects. Whilst in wood pasture areas, they will assist with controlling vegetation growth, helping to create a mosaic of trees, scrub, and grassland.
The new fencing is a key requirement to the park’s development plans, with initial installation starting at the field in front of the Panshanger House site. It is being carefully sighted along woodland edges, so that the scenic views are not impacted. This extension will allow the cattle to venture into this space for the first time and will recreate the scene from the famous Humphrey Repton Red Book, which showed longhorn cattle grazing in this area.
Key historic landscape areas around the park, such as the sensitive land close to Panshanger House, will have traditional metal estate fencing erected. However, the majority of the new fencing introduced will be made from wire and sustainable wooden posts, using sweet chestnut wood harvested by Torry Hill Chestnut Fencing, from park-owner Tarmac’s woodlands in Kent. The timber there is coppiced every 15 years as part of a management plan.
Over the next two years Maydencroft, who manage the park on behalf of Tarmac, will install 8,000 metres around different locations at the park, including Chisel Shelf and the landscape around Cole Green. Other upcoming plans involve partial removal of the invasive laurel and planting new parkland trees in the following Winter.
Michael Charlton, estates manager, said: “It has been really busy couple of months in the park as we have started to implement this exciting new phase of restoration. I am looking forward to seeing the positive impact that the increased grazing areas will have on the parks habitats and wildlife over the coming years.”
