Much of the farm was de-nuded of trees during the Second World War, when farmers were exhorted to ‘Dig for Victory’ and every square yard was put to use. Following a vigorous planting programme over the last 20 years, the farm now has 25 hectares of mainly broad-leaved woodlands and conservation land. As well as 13 km of old banked hedges, some of them ancient, we have planted 4.4 km of new hedges. These require a variety of management including felling and milling timber trees, logging and thinning larches, hauling out timber, seasoning it, cutting and seasoning logs for fire wood, laying and trimming hedges and some of the wood can be used for activities such as furniture making and green wood techniques. We also have a small tree nursery and have grown many of our trees from seed, planting a few hundred each year. While we support traditional hand wood skills, including cleaving and adzing, anyone who has actually used a pit saw will be pleased to hear that we have a Woodmizer band saw that can plank up 15m tree trunks 70cm in diameter.

Some of our blackthorn hedges are managed specifically for Brown Hairstreak Butterflies which lay their eggs on them, while we collect the dark blue sloes to make sloe gin. We are the best farm in Wales for Brown Hairstreaks and have a 2.5 ha reserve especially for them.

(photo courtesy of M J Clark)