Shavington Estate

Shavington Estate is a working dairy farm near Market Drayton, Shropshire, run on regenerative principles by William and Johanna Heywood-Lonsdale. The estate holds ancient and veteran trees, pockets of ancient semi-natural woodland, and the remains of a historic parkland landscape.

Rather than manage the land intensively, the estate lets natural processes do more of the work: herbivore browsing holds back scrub in some areas and lets it develop in others, land drains are broken to re-wet parts of the site dried out by decades of farming, and traditional management continues where it earns its place, coppicing the existing woodland and managing the lowland meadow.

Thirteen hectares of new wood-pasture and parkland bring back the scattered trees and open grazing that once shaped the estate, alongside 10 hectares of mixed scrub, five of wet woodland, and a hectare of new ponds and broadleaved woodland. Nearly 85 hectares of existing habitat are enhanced too, including 45 hectares of grassland, 23 of lowland mixed deciduous woodland, and 16 of lowland meadow, plus a veteran oak protected as irreplaceable habitat.

The enhancement work connects directly into Big Wood, an area of ancient and replanted woodland on the site boundary, and into the wider network of old woodland beyond it.

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