FRIENDS OF JUNIPER HILL FIELD
FRAGMENTATION OF GRASSLAND IS NOT CONSERVATION
Working to Save Juniper Hill Field
About Us
In November 2024, Juniper Hill Field was saved for wildlife and the community thanks to an anonymous donation which enabled Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust to buy the field. The 20 acre site which adjoins the nature reserves of Juniper Hill Field and Frith Wood, was the subject of a campaign by local residents which won national and local media coverage and collected 1200 signatures on a petition asking the owners, Woodlands.co.uk, for a dialogue on how best to conserve the rare calcareous grassland and lark population.
The Friends of Juniper Hill Field will continue as a community group committed to working with Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust to ensure the wildlife flourish. Please stay in touch and sign up for our newsletter
The Campaign to Conserve Juniper Hill Field
Juniper Hill and Frith Wood are both Sites of Special Scientific Interest. At the top of Juniper Hill, between these two SSSIs, lies a 20-acre piece of limestone grassland for which the Cotswolds Commons and Beechwoods AONB is famous. This particular wildflower meadow is rich in flora - a product of the geology together with many years of low intensity grazing. It provides an ecological transition to Juniper Hill, a rich unimproved limestone grassland, to the woodlands immediately bordering it, and a link to Bull’s Cross, Painswick Beacon, Rudge Hill and Swifts Hill, all special wildlife-rich grasslands. It is also a vital wildlife corridor between the two SSSIs.
Only 1.5% of the Cotswold wildflower meadows remain, and are a priority for conservation, as most ecosystems of this type have now been lost; they are valuable carbon stores, are scarce, and can only be maintained by carefully controlled grazing.
Juniper Hill Field is rich in wildflowers, including five species of orchid, together with many species of pollinating insects and a breeding population of skylarks. Representatives of public bodies and wildlife organisations with knowledge of this site consider it to be an extremely valuable and environmentally sensitive area. It is, however, unprotected at the moment.
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The land was purchased by Woodland Investment Management Ltd in 2021 and they began dividing it into 5-acre plots to sell to individuals for leisure purposes. This involved quarrying on the site to obtain stone and building a 500m track across the field. Contractors installed fences to mark off the separate plots. Not only did this restrict public access to a narrow wire-mesh lined path, but also made effective conservation management difficult, if not impossible. This kind of limestone grassland is best managed by light grazing by cattle which ensures the wildflowers and insect life flourish. The Friends of Juniper Hill campaign attempted a dialogue with Woodland Investment Management and collected 1200 signatures on a petition; we even sent the owner Angus Hanton jam and sloe gin made from produce collected on the field. We got no reply.
But the good news is that there has been rapid progress since the field passed into the ownership of Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust in November 2024. Seventeen belted Galloway cattle have been brought onto the field to graze for a few months and a system of volunteers keeps up daily checks on their welfare. At the end of February 2025, Friends of Juniper Hill volunteers also helped GWT staff pull up more than 120 fence posts which were due to be used to split up the field. The work had to be done before the larks began breeding because the posts were likely to be used as perching points by birds of prey.
The Friends of Juniper Hill are keen to promote better understanding of this rare grassland and the beautiful wildlife it supports. We are planning surveys in the summer as well as guided walks. Please sign up to our newsletter for future plans.
Our Supporters
1,188
and counting. . .
Join us:
Please register your support for our campaign in the form below.
Let us know what you think by commenting in our Forum.
Honorary Patrons of Friends of Juniper Hill Field
Mary Portas
Josh O'Connor
As a resident of Slad I have come to love the Cotswold grasslands. They are a unique and precious habitat and we must do all we can to save these last fragments.
This field is a beautiful upland grassland and every effort must be made to protect such a rare habitat. Splitting it up into small plots makes no sense in terms of conservation. All the current thinking about how to ensure our wildlife can adapt to climate change is focussed on linking up reserves and this field is key to that.
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Oliver Heywood was a landscape painter who lived in the area and created many wonderful paintings of Juniper Hill Field. His son, Pip Heywood has written a reminiscence of his time with his father walking on the field. His words perfectly distill what this place means to so many. You can read it here.
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The local community, local and national conservation groups, and nature lovers from far and near voiced their support for our campaign to preserve Juniper Hill Field. Read some of their expressions of support in Voices in the Field.
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September 2020
April 2023
June 2023
Woodlands.co.uk aka Woodland Investment Management was wrong when it asserted that ‘[Juniper Meadow] has unfortunately been on the decline since WWII due to increasingly intensive farming methods utilised in the rural economy’. The conservation grazing practiced by the previous owners has been proven to improve biodiversity. The practice increases the diversity of plant communities, recycles nutrients back into the soil, provides modes of seed dispersal, eliminates the use of herbicides, and can sequestrate as much carbon as a forest system, among other ecological benefits.
In fact, the UK Department of Food & Rural Affairs recommends conservation grazing as it “creates vegetation at different heights, and small areas of bare ground. This makes it suitable for a wide range of wildlife in different habitats. It allows wildflowers to grow, flower and set seed each year. This provides pollen and nectar for invertebrates and increases invertebrate food available for birds.”
In countries around the world, semi-natural grasslands (those helped by traditional grazing) are recognized for their high biodiversity and their social and cultural values. Research has also shown that the decreasing quantity and quality of semi-natural grasslands are linked to declines in biodiversity and related ecosystem services. Furthermore, fragmentation of grassland as Woodland Investment Management is attempting on Juniper Hill Field, creates areas that will generally be encroached by shrubs and trees. Just as the biodiversity that has been encouraged over recent decades is beginning to be undermined so too are the social and cultural benefits to the local community being lost.
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Photograph by Deborah Roberts, Landscape & Conservation Photographer, & Friend of Juniper Hill Field. This panorama shot from Juniper Hill Field shows its proximity to the Painswick Valley, and the link to a wildlife corridor and important sites for rare species such as SSSI Rudge Hill Common at Edge, Painswick Beacon etc.
Get in Touch
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If you would like to hear more about Juniper Hill Field, sign up for our Newsletter below. ​
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Your personal information will not be shared and will only be used to keep you updated with what is happening to Juniper Hill Field.
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For decades we have been recording the plants found in the field and have started to catalogue its wildlife. If you see species other than those listed in the Plant & Wildlife Survey section, please send us their names and where possible pictures. We'd love to post them to our instagram site.
