What makes British grasslands so special?

Our language is full of references to fields, livestock and grasslands of one kind or another: field days, make hay while the sun shines, pastures new, the grass is always greener on the other side of the hill, till the cows come home...

Not so long ago everyone would have known the names of each field in their parish, the names of all the flowers that grew in them, and the butterflies, bees and birds. They would have known which fungi were edible and which toadstools to avoid. They may well have used local names that we wouldn’t recognise now.

My earliest memories are from the patch of grassland behind the back garden where I grew up in East London. Here we used to play, ride bikes and take the dog for a walk. A tiny remnant of an Epping Forest “plain” has survived to this day, despite centuries of nibbling away at its edges by suburban sprawl, road improvements and tree planting.

I went back a few weeks ago to see what was there – amazingly I found it was quite different from how I had remembered it – I thought it was dry sandy grassland with ant-hills. Actually it was a very odd wet lumpy, bumpy area of Mat-grass- a plant you’d be more likely to encounter on the top of the Pennines rather than 4 miles from the city of London. It was incredibly springy underfoot. It was a very magical experience being transported back to early childhood – and a remarkable survival of a rare grassland habitat, lowland acid grassland.

Grasslands are like that – they are dynamic, they are constantly changing, both in our minds and in reality. Grasslands are not the natural vegetation of these islands, they are maintained by human activity – albeit activity that stretches back 6000 years to the Neolithic and beyond. Grasslands are where the impacts of people and nature collide – creating what are called semi-natural grasslands. In reality almost all of our British habitats are semi-natural, because practically everywhere has been managed for something or another over the millennia.

We have some fantastic grasslands in Britain. Here are five of my favourites:

1. Scotland’s montane grasslands – kept naturally open by the elements, tiny magical places like Ben Lawers, or the sugar limestone at Glenshee.
2. The Chilterns scarp – a favourite of mine from my days with Berks, Bucks and Oxon Wildlife Trust. Fantastic chalk downland sites rich in orchids and butterflies.
3. West Fermanagh Meadows, Northern Ireland. An utterly stunning landscape of wildflower meadows and fen meadows – a relatively undiscovered treat, like nothing else in the UK.
4. Carmel National Nature Reserve, Carmarthenshire (below). Our flagship nature reserve in Carmarthenshire. Possibly the only wooded meadow site in the UK – fantastic for meadow wildlife and ancient woodland spring flowers.
5. The Weald meadows, Kent and Sussex – probably the greatest surviving concentration of wildflower meadows left in England, being restored thanks to the Weald Meadows Initiative.

Next time I will be talking about the different kinds of semi-natural grasslands that occur in the UK and where and when to see them at their best.

Miles King

Miles King is The Grasslands Trust’s Director of Conservation. He has worked in nature conservation for 25 years for a wide range of organisations including several Wildlife Trusts, Plantlife and English Nature. Miles enjoys writing about grasslands and nature.