Woodland Conservation Group - Fridays

1st August 2025

Meadows - Hotel Field

Friday’s Woodland Conservation Session saw us return to Hotel Field to continue our meadow reclamation. Our 17 volunteers split into three groups to tackle different areas of the meadow and together they clocked up another 45 hours of volunteering.

As you enter the meadow you are greeted by a large bramble patch to the left. Whilst this was completely destroyed some time ago in a wildfire, as with most woodland vegetation, most damage was above ground and the roots remained.  As a result, the brambles have regrown with such vigour that the new patch is even bigger and is now encroaching on the meadow, and also on the pathway, creating numerous trip hazards. One team tackled this, making the pathway safer and reducing meadow encroachment.

Another team tackled the huge area of bramble at the top of the meadow, focussing on a section which had not fruited successfully, leaving the main fruiting area for a future session.

Finally, the third group returned to the copse at the far side of the meadow and cut the brambles back to the tree canopy line, reclaiming a good metre plus of meadow and, again, cutting back brambles which were extending across the pathway and dangerous to walkers.

Reclaiming the meadow by removing those brambles extending beyond the tree canopy.

An interesting observation were the numerous galls on the oak trees in the copse, together with numerous Silk-button Spangle Gall Wasps attached to the underside of oak leaves. These give the upper side of the leaves a very mottled appearance but they cause minimal harm to healthy oaks and are considered part of normal biodiversity. 

The Silk-button spangle gall wasp is part of normal biodiversity

There remains much work to do on Hotel Field but the time has come to move onto a different area.  

A welcome break and an opportunity to discuss future plans.

Great work, everyone!