Pound Farm - Great Glemham
Site Description
Pound Farm is a 90 hectare site that was created from 1990 to 1993 on boulder clay over chalk. It is set in a rolling landscape of farmland (predominantly arable), woodland and hedgerows. The adjoining land is arable with Cransford SSSI meadow close by on the northern boundary. The design mirrors the surrounding land uses incorporating 56 hectares of new native broadleaved woodland, 7 hectares of existing ancient woodland, 26 hectares of newly created wildflower meadows, 4200m of planted hedgerows and 5 restored ponds. There were some initial problems with the establishment of certain species - oak in the north-west corner, and small-leaved lime and wild cherry along the northern boundary have all suffered from a high failure rate, but this has been redressed with infill planting and natural broadleaf regeneration. Throughout the secondary woodland natural regeneration is beginning to flourish breaking up the regimented plantation structure.
The trees were planted directly into stubble and the rides and meadows were disked, harrowed, sown and then rolled again. The seed mix for the meadows comprised red fescue, smooth-stalked meadow grass, sheep's fescue, small-leaved timothy, sweet vernal grass and 2% wildflowers including oxeye daisy, meadow buttercup, bird's foot trefoil, salad burnet, black medick, ribwort plantain, self heal and yarrow. The seed mix for the rides comprised crested dogs tail, red fescue, meadow fescue, common bent, meadow foxtail, meadow barley, quaking grass and 1% wildflowers including yarrow, black knapweed, ladies bedstraw, oxeye daisy, sheep's sorrel, meadow saxifrage, white campion and betony. The rides and meadows have established well but there have been considerable problems with noxious weeds (wild oats, ragwort and thistle) spreading from the tree planting areas due to a lack of weed control prior to planting and in the early years. A deer fence was erected around the whole site because of the presence of roe, fallow and muntjac deer in the area.
Five ponds were restored when the site was created - one was already established and the other four have been created on site of previously filled in ponds. The ponds originally thought to be of low conservation value are now developing a diverse ecology, with a wide variety of associated invertebrates, plant species, great crested newts smooth newts recorded.
The ancient woodland is in 3 small copses comprising ash, field maple and hazel over a ground flora dominated by dog's mercury - typical of W8 type woodland. Broom Covert is the largest remnant with the best structure, the other two functions more as shelterbelts.
The site has been designed to give maximum enjoyment to the public with an extensive ride network, open spaces, information boards and car parking facilities. The woodland creation areas have been split up into plots with 6 - 8 trees marked by small posts. This enables members of the public to sponsor a plot and thereby contribute to the development of the site and the countryside in general. It is believed that somewhere between 10,000 and 15000 people use the site each year based on an estimate of 50 people per day during the week and 100 per day at weekends - a good proportion of these are regular dog walkers and people visiting their plots. It has also been designed for the benefit of wildlife with a range of habitats linked by hedgerows.
