Hurst Farm

Hurst Farm sits in the Semington brook valley near Worton, Wiltshire, farmed by Jack Marshall. The site was once home to a mill with its own pond, gone from the record for over 100 years.

The scheme creates just over four hectares of new habitat alongside the brook, mostly mixed scrub, as well as new neutral grassland and ponds. Nearly 31 hectares of existing grassland and scrub are enhanced across the wider site, moving poor-quality pasture into traditional hay meadow and grazing management, alongside three veteran trees protected as irreplaceable habitat.

Decades of modification, straightened channels, old sluices, the remains of that mill, have left almost two miles of Semington brook and its tributaries running too fast for wildlife to make use of. Beaver have already tried: surveyors found feeding signs and a felled tree on the site's own stretch of bank. Water vole are close too, recorded just 150 metres from the boundary, but the same fast water keeps them out. The scheme adds a third of a mile of new channel and clears the sluices and remains still narrowing the flow, slowing the brook down enough for both to finally move in.

A Conservation Covenant with Fera Science secures the scheme for 30 years.