Goodwood Estate is many things to many people, and its dedicated forestry team is ensuring its 2,000 hectares of woodland are fit for the future, while successfully incorporating agroforestry, too.
GOODWOOD Estate covers 4,100 hectares of West Sussex, including 36 per cent farmland and 44 per cent woodland. Thanks to the foresight of the current stewards, the 11th Duke and Duchess of Richmond, the farm and woodlands provide the backdrop to an increasing number of events held on the estate.
Over a million visitors last year enjoyed the annual motorsports and horseracing events, as well as ‘365’ day-a-year experiences such as golf, motor circuit track days, the flying school, seasonal cricket, wellness weekend breaks or organic farm-to-fork dining. Occasional visitors may be passing on their way through the South Downs National Park, walking the South Downs Way or strolling some of the estate’s 46 miles of public access; 92 per cent of the estate falls within the National Park.
Today, one visitor accompanies Goodwood head forester Darren Norris to discover first hand the benefits forestry brings to farming. Our tour begins with an overview of Goodwood’s forestry operations. We are then joined by farm manager Harry Holt, sustainability project manager Sophia Llewelyn and head of marketing and PR Jade Callan, for an in-depth look at an agroforestry project, still in its infancy and already bearing fruit, literally paving the way for further collaborations and creating a holistic resource that offers both departments the ability to respond to whatever the changing climate holds.
Goodwood’s Forestry Resource
Goodwood Estate incorporates 2,000 ha of woodland. 1,200 ha are let on a long-term lease to the FC. The in-house forestry team of seven manages 800 ha of broadleaf (70 per cent) and productive conifer (30 per cent).
Head Forester
Darren Norris, 55, grew up on the estate borders, charging around the same woods that his grandfather logged with heavy horses. Leaving school, he worked for a local tree surgeon with clients such as Goodwood’s ‘Gardens’ and ‘Farm’ departments. For personal interest, he joined “a local archaeology team at the ‘Boxgrove Man’ site,” a quarry on the estate borders containing the earliest hominid remains found in the UK. “It gave me a sense of the geology and history of the place.”
Joining Goodwood full time in 2003, Darren became head forester in 2010, managing the woods under a Countryside Stewardship agreement which finishes this year.
“Mostly, our woods are very healthy. We have some quality conifer, a lot of beech and some very good chestnut coppice coming back into rotation. For the last five years, our Woodland Plan has concentrated on increasing habitat, widening east-to-west rides, haloing around trees and trying to break up monocultures, as we ultimately head towards continuous-cover forestry.”
Forestry Yard
Goodwood’s Forestry team also performs estate maintenance. The yard contains accoutrements for both: Valtra (and other) forestry tractors and trailers; Botex grabs and other lifting equipment; large felled butts, piles of bark strips and shredded roots; metal gates and wooden gates; bought-in rolls of metal stock fencing, planks and poles; a Bryce Suma post driver; butts of cork oak; oak planks air-drying in stack; semi-mature Japanese cherry with rootballs (from Deepdale Nurseries) for planting out later today.
To one side of the yard, a barn houses a mess room and firewood bays. Along the top, a long, low shed contains planks of Douglas fir, western red cedar and cedar of Lebanon bought from the estate by traditional house builders ‘Artizans of Wood’. Following their recent move to this yard, they built a workshop with covered porch to accommodate their Wood-Mizer LT20 sawmill bench. “Artizans are an asset to us. They make roundwood buildings in the traditional way. For the estate, they are restoring a (deer) ‘hanging shed’ at the back of the Kennels (club house) where guests can enjoy a quiet evening drink.” Estate-grown Western red cedar will form the roof shingles, and a specially selected oak tree, felled by the forestry team, will clad the interior.
Around the corner, the farm shop sells all manner of quality food and decorative items, including kindling and willow branches.
Forestry Works
In their role as woodland managers, the forestry team performs management works raised by tree inspections. They remove fallen trees and ADB-infected ash from the woodland and roadside. They plant out parkland trees and process firewood (mostly beech now that the ash is running out) for use in-house by Goodwood House, Hound Lodge (luxury lodge) and in some of the 137 estate properties.
This year, Goodwood’s felling licence allows the thinning of 2,500 m³ of productive timber. Contractor MJO Forestry (West Dean) undertakes these larger works, mitigation-felling the spruce (in mixed compartments) or thinning Douglas fir for rideside sawlogs sales. Darren says: “Douglas goes to the likes of Euroforest. The estate sawmill, now privately run by A&G Lilywhite, took 50 m³ this year.”
Low-quality chestnut coppice (from plantations being brought back into rotation) and bought-in roundwood (supplied by MJO from local estates) is co-fired with 5,800 straw bales (a reusable byproduct used to create a protective barrier for the ‘Hillclimb’ track at the ‘Festival of Speed’) in the 3.5 MW biomass energy facility on site. The facility delivers electricity to venues across the estate, including Goodwood Hotel, Goodwood House, Park Lodge, as well as to a proportion of Goodwood events. It also provides hot water to a handful of these venues. A smaller boiler provides heat for the Kennels and Hound Lodge.
Home Farm
The late Duchess of Richmond and Gordon was an early champion of the organic movement, and the 1,700 ha Home Farm has been organic for 20 years. Livestock (dairy, beef, sheep, pigs) and arable crops are managed on six- to seven-year rotations.
“A rotation is three years of growing pasture (deep-rooting grasses, clovers and herbs) grazed by livestock who turn it into manure. Then we plough and plant a cereal crop, usually winter wheat (silage), followed by barley (estate malted beer or fodder). Then it is back to pasture,” explains Harry Holt, farm manager.
Harry illustrates the need for farming rotations. “From farming with chemical inputs to going organic there is always a transition period where the soil learns to deal without those inputs and plants must search for food. We are past that, but stopping chemical use doesn’t mean that soils are suddenly healthy; that is down to practices. Taking food crops is like discharging a battery. You have to recharge it by putting something back. A good system of rotation puts something back. For three years, our (thin) soil rests while plants put down roots. Livestock graze and put manure back. Ploughing is destructive to the top four to six inches of soil, but every three or four years we have to stop pasture growth somehow.”
Agroforestry Trial
Until 2019/2020, the 5.6 ha agroforestry trial field was under cereal crops (fodder) and a winter-seeding plant mix for bird food (part of the Countryside Stewardship Agreement). Today, it contains 400 fruit and nut trees (apple, cherry, pear, almonds) planted in rows at 30-metre spacings. The wide spacing allows potential crops (or a grass lay) to be grown in between.
Trees for timber include walnut (black and hybrid), and 200 Corsican pine in tubes (to protect against rabbits and hares) form a windbreak at the back. Darren says: “The almonds are an experiment to see if they’ll grow in our thin estate soils.” Unexpectedly, last year they produced a one-pound crop. He ate the last of them this morning.
Harry says that in spring, the inter-row grasses will be topped (silage) or mulched back into the soil and single-strand electrical fencing could be used should cows ever graze here. He notes the sound of a skylark, while Darren says that the field is good habitat for owls and kestrels and the number of beehives will be increased to keep the field self-pollinating. Sophia says, “Shrub and (estate-grown) cork oak bug hotels will increase habitat for insects and invertebrates.”
Two New Reasons for Agroforestry Collaboration
The trial field’s edge comprises a metal deer fence abutting a hedge one tree wide. Harry feels that being able to see through the hedge base is unhealthy. “Wildlife lives in the first 30–45 cm, and that is where all ground-nesting species will be,” explains Darren.
Home Farm is tucked into the estate’s south-east corner. Shipping fodder for livestock across the estate (up to four miles) takes time and fuel. Harry says, “If I can intensify what is grown here, within the 121 ha immediately surrounding the farm, planting less crops and increasing the herbal lays, incorporating stands of holly or willow in fields or in hedges, means less time spent and less fuel used to bring in forage from elsewhere. There is evidence that cows self-medicate, using willow as an aspirin.”
Agroforestry Solutions that Work for both Forestry and Farming
One solution is to plant dual-purpose ‘super hedges’ across farm fields, for forage and to provide “connectivity between woodlands, so that animals have places to hide from predators, and to provide barriers so that disease and pests cannot travel as far or spread as quickly,” says Sophia.
Darren describes a ‘super hedge’ as a “thick, tiered hedge, 5–10 metres wide, formed of low scrub, medium scrub, small trees (fruit, nuts and berries for wildlife, cattle and sheep) and timber trees, an elm or oak, and conifer, because that is where insects, spiders and small birds shelter in winter.” There is scope to reinstate twenty miles of hedging.
Harry says: “Where we can, we are working towards incorporating agroforestry projects across the whole farm as we take the farm down a regenerative route, which goes hand in hand with organic farming.”
A potential beneficiary of this further collaboration is the Trundle, a Bronze Age Scheduled Ancient Monument (hill) covered in grassy chalk downland. “The site is unique, its own habitat, but it could benefit from planting spinneys to break up the landscape and offer shelter to both wildlife and animals,” like Levin Down.
One solution has already been actioned in a water meadow that consistently floods. Harry asks, “Why would I plant crops where they are consistently going to fail?”
Agroforestry for Water and Local Communities
Beside the Racecourse, Triangle Car Park offers panoramic views of the estate and South Downs National Park, the low-level scrub and spinneys on Levin Down, farm buildings in valleys, farm fields, farm hedges with gaps or farm hedges that just run out, a block of woodland managed in-house, a skyline filled with FC forestry, the Racecourse and stand. Also visible are larger and smaller patches of new woodland planting.
Over the last five years, two large new planting projects (incorporating approximately 150,000 trees) have filled in whole areas of the estate. Darren says: “Now that we have filled them in, we can join the dots.”
Agroforestry in Fields and the Water meadow
Darren points to some of the fields with gaps in the hedges (seen from Triangle Car Park). “Those are the classics we want to turn into ‘super hedges’ filled with multiple species. It will take out some farmland, but Harry is supportive and evidence shows doing this to be beneficial for livestock and for the retention of water.”
Above Charlton village, a light-coloured 20-metre-wide strip of young hardwoods runs across the hillside (incorporating a circular path should local residents want to walk to Singleton village). Darren says: “The hillside is where all the water originates. This strip is the first part of a riparian bund (buffer) slowing the flow of water before it gets to the water meadow.”
The River Lavant is a winterbourne chalk stream (dry in summer but flowing overground in winter or in periods following high rainfall) which flows through Charlton village. “Collaborative discussions are ongoing with the Arun and Rothers Rivers Trust, West Dean and Goodwood on how best to manage the health of the river and tackle the challenges posed by flooding in the local area,” says Sophia.
She explains: “The local villages regularly experience issues with sewage when the water table is high during the winter months and during high rainfall periods due to the sewage network being over capacity. The estate is investigating various nature-based solutions where appropriate, such as the creation of riparian buffers, as this will aid in reducing the volume of water reaching the river from the surrounding hills and should reduce the pressure on the river’s water levels.”
In some field corners, Darren has planted black poplar, a gift from the Arun and Rothers Rivers Trust. In the water meadow, in collaboration with Harry, the forestry team has planted 200 goat willow protected by spirals. “Livestock can eat it, the flowers are good for early bumble bees and it regrows. The plan is to extend this type of planting to other areas.”
Surrounded by flooded fields, it feels faintly ridiculous to ask whether the woodlands suffer from drought. Darren responds: “It is possible that ADB hit us so badly because we have very little soil over the chalk. In periods of dry weather, the trees get stressed and more susceptible to illness just at the time ADB is at its most prevalent. It is the same reason for Ips and all other diseases.”
Agroforestry for Local Communities
Filling the gaps in roadside hedges provides for wildlife, local communities and a small market for under-utilised estate products. Professional hedge-layer Rosie Rendell incorporates estate-grown chestnut (stakes) and hazel (weave) in the 250 metres she lays annually. Darren says that Thursday volunteers ‘the Crumblies’ (a retired group of conservationists), between “drinking a lot of tea and eating a lot of cake, are revitalising a Bullace plum hedge (currently 500 metres).
Plums fruit on second-year wood so they are laying some and leaving in some standards. Either way, we will end up with a stock-proof fence and with plums.” Reviving miles of redundant hazel coppice (historically used to make hurdles for sheep) could potentially see the estate reviving hazelnut production.
On the road into Charlton village, a young roadside elm (Ademuz) planting was gifted by the South Downs National Park. “In the village, this area is known as ‘the Elms’. You would say ‘Meet you at the Elms’ to have a private conversation. It’s a nice historical feature to put back. The mulch is orange because it is fresh.”
Agroforestry elsewhere
Evidence suggests that agroforestry works elsewhere. “In Norfolk, they are losing their topsoil.
When ploughing, the wind literally takes a little bit every year. They plant trees across the wind, changing the wind pattern to trap the soil. Trees, with longer roots, draw up water from lower down in the aquifer, creating different microclimates and a better crop.”
Goodwood’s Agroforestry Future
Darren sees the appetite for agroforestry growing. “Where possible, we try to keep our systems holistic.”
Good for habitat (wildlife), good for shelter and windbreaks, “fruit and nut trees also offer produce for estate businesses and the farm shop and improve the husbandry of livestock. Sheep and cows eat fruit and bark: both have nutrients they can tap into. Harry’s work with regenerative farming is about improving the soils and increasingly we see birds following the plough and wildlife coming back. Growing multi-species lays with more herbs for a better livestock food palate has to be helpful, especially if we can grow hedgerows that they want to browse – the field edges may become more productive than the field.
“If we don’t worry about the boundaries between fields, woods and trees, we don’t get into silos and we work as a team.”
For all things Goodwood, including events, see: www.goodwood.com
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