Environmental Improvements
2011 onwards

Home Farm and Oak Farm
in the Parishes of Parham and Great Glemham
Suffolk, England

• Pond clearance

  To open up the south side of (initially) 4 ponds to allow sunlight into ponds that had become dark, leaf-filled and overgrown, in the expectation of a far greater variety of pondlife.
  
  

  Pond in Home Farm Yards
  Before	Cleared	Dredged	Re-Filled
  Home Meadows Pond
  Pond in Big Brittles
  Pond in Little Meadow
  Pond in Queen Mary's Wood
  Sorry, I omitted to take a 'Before' picture. Large trees, mostly hazels and willows overhung the pond all around and you could walk over the pond bed.
  Pond beyond Mayweed Field
  	No clearing required
  Pond beside the Packway
  Sorry, I omitted to take a 'Before' picture. You could walk over the pond bed.	No clearing required

  
  Here is the status report on pond work so far and still to do,
  only covering the 4 pond restorations under our Higher Level Stewardship plan. 
  
  
  
• Status Oct 2013: 7 ponds cleared where required, dredged and re-filled; 3 more than originally planned. Some stumps still to treat to prevent regrowth.
  

• Hedge planting

  3/4 of a mile of new hedge planting, to join up existing areas of woodland so that wildlife can safely move between them
  
  

  The above pictures show the two runs of the new hedge between Big Brittles and Big Pit Hill. Below are three runs of the new hedge along Queen Mary's Lane. However, we're not sure who or what keeps pulling off the deer guards - probably the deer?
  The new hedge and permissive bridleway between Queen Mary's Field and Saxmundham Road Field.	The newly planted hedge along the southern end of Mayweed Field. It has been planted alongside the original gappy elm hedge that has been coppiced to thicken it. The ditch has also been cleared.

• Status May 2013: Complete
• Plan: Remove deer guards after 2-3 years, then once mature include in regular hedge maintenance.

• Hedge Thickening

  Coppicing or laying stretches of hedge (shown below) that have grown too high, in order to thicken the base of these hedges to give better cover for wild birds.
  
• Status May 2013:
  Coppiced over-tall hedge along the W side of the Cransford Road (Big Brittles field) in Jan 2012.
  Laid hedge by pond in Home Farm yards and along bridleway at the bottom of Two Little Fields.
  Complete for now. 
• Plan: Once the hedge on the W side of the Cransford Road has grown back a little, we will coppice the over-tall hedge on the E side (Corrances).
  
  
  
  Apr 2014: Regrowth of elm hedge along Cransford Road after coppicing in Jan 2012.
  Previously it was very gappy at the base
  with numerous tall standards in danger of succumbing to Dutch Elm disease once they exceed 4-5m
  
  Apr 2021: Same elm hedge (just starting to come into leaf). Nicely thickened up since coppiced in Jan 2012.
  Notice the previously gappy hedge on the other side of the road has now been coppiced too
  (in Jan 2016 once the opposite hedge had regrown enough to offer sufficient cover)
  
  
  
  Mar 2012: Hedge along Wabbs Lane bridleway just after having been laid to thicken the base.
  Previously it consisted of over-tall trunks the height of the smaller trees shown still standing.
  
  
  Hedge between the bridleway and pond in Home Farm yards, two years after being laid to thicken the base in Feb 2012.
  

• New Meadow

  Planting 0.7 ha of previously cropped land as a new wildflower meadow
• Status May 2013: Large bare patches due to the extended cold winter may need re-drilling

• Wild Bird Seed Areas

  Planting nine field-corners with flowers selected to produce seed-heads for wild birds to feed on over winter, totalling 3.6ha
  
• Status Jul 2013: Complete.
• Plan: Re-sow every 2 years.

• Wild-Flower Field Margins

  Sowing 4.4ha of field margins with tussocky grass then scattering chopped hay cut from Parham's North Green to spread the large range of wild flowers from the common
• Status Jul 2013: Complete

• New Footpaths and Bridleways

  Creating a new large circular walk and a permissive bridleway joining with paths within the neighbouring Pound Farm Woodland Trust site:
  

  	Visit our new Web site for the story of Queen Mary's Lane. Currently it's just a dumping ground for the raw information; We plan to tart it up and expand it. QueenMarysLane.info

  
  This walk includes over half a mile along the historic Queen Mary's Lane, which we have opened up as a permissive bridleway and joined it to an existing bridleway.
  
  On Thursday 20th July 1553 Queen Mary marched her army along this lane from Framlingham Castle to London, to claim the crown from Lady Jane Grey. We have set up interpretation boards about those events, and about Queen Mary's Wood (left) and Queen Mary's Plantation (right), which was created when the schoolchildren of the parish planted the Great Horse Meadow with acorns in 1890.
• Status Apr 2014: Completed and opened on Sun 30 Mar 2014.

Master Plan

All the above activities are captured on this master plan
(except those we have completed voluntarily)

Balanced with Crop Production

Not Forgetting Continuing Woodland and Hedgerow Maintenance

This picture, taken 9-Dec-2012, was most likely die-back in one of the ashes
planted in 2007 by Paul Briscoe in the Gull on our farm.

Before opening the circular walk (planned Spring 2014),
many young ashes in Queen Mary's Wood, and a number of mature ashes too,
had already succumbed to the disease as well.