On Reflection with Arthur Crutchely

I meet Arthur Crutchley not far from his house, just at the turning from the road into the driveway. There, along a strip of mown grass is an old log seat, perfectly placed for looking over the lay of the land, and reflecting on the changes and challenges facing the farm, and being part of the Brit Valley Project.

“Our grandfather used to come up here when he was really old and read the paper and watch the farm. He’d watch what was going on, then… somebody would come and wake him up a few hours later. Every year it's the first place I see the swallows – they come in and you just see them whipping up over the bank there…”

Listening to Arthur, standing here with this view, reminds me of a practice in environmental education called ‘sit spots’ – where you return time and again to sit in the same place, to look at the same viewpoint. But notice what has changed, in the turning of the season, or in our own evolving perception of place. Arthur and his family have chance for some long-term views, but he is also clearly attuned to noticing the in-the-moment rhythms of nature as well. And it is something he is now happily sharing, and encouraging, with his 5-year-old daughter.

“Yeah, there's a big sort of brambly, gorsy bank there, which is sort of holding the bank together because the green sands are all just slumping away. There are springs popping up everywhere. And these lovely... lovely dips and lumps and bumps where you can be completely tucked out of the wind. It's a stunning spot, isn’t it?”

I agree, and from here we can see the mosaic of fields, hedges and coppices, that look rather diverse and naturalistic to me, although even in fifty years or so much has changed. Arthur explains that one of the slightly scraggy fields we can see has been sown as a herbal lay – a diverse mix of grasses, legumes (like clover), and herbs to improve soil health. In the not so distant past a fallow period for each field would be normal on such a mixed farm, to allow the soil and its fertility to recover. In modern farming with machinery and artificial inputs that was no longer deemed necessary. But in Arthur’s experience that stores up problems for the longer-term future, and on his farm, after a period of intensifying even further, it reached a crisis point.

“Nothing made sense at all. We were doing what we could, but it was crashing. We weren't doing well financially. The cows weren't doing well, the health of the cows. The farm wasn't doing well. We were hammering the soils. We were hammering everything. Fields like this, there's so much topsoil gone, that's been washed away with the rains. And we were the culprits.”

Arthur showed me where the level of the field used to be compared to where it is now after years of being washed away – a difference of several feet. In places, he says, there’s only an inch of topsoil left, and the underlying clay is becoming the topsoil. The original river route is no longer in the natural lowest point of the land. After the maize had been harvested, you could see soil-filled water flowing into the road during winter rains. Other farmers in the project, such as Martin Huxley at Filford Farm, report the same problems with erosion and flooding – that’s being exacerbated by even wetter winters.

In his words: “we’re lucky on this farm [having other income from the estate] that we can experiment and be creative with solutions.” The legume leys, bring fertility back into the soil, and help stabilise the clay. They’ve tried sowing grass into maize, so that the soil isn’t bare when harvested. They also allow pasture to be more intensively grazed, but for a shorter period of time and with longer rest periods for the land (akin to the beneficial mob grazing system that Tarsha Finney talks about). It helps to create a landscape-scale mosaic that underpins so much of what farm wildlife needs. He tells me he wishes they still had the hedgerows that were here back in the 1950s, so that the cattle could be kept on small parcels of grazing. “These fields are big compared to what they would have been, yet they're still small and complicated for someone to manage from an arable point of view. But from my point of view, they're too big for our cattle. Moveable fencing is too difficult.”

And for someone like Arthur who then takes the time to stop, stand and watch the land, positive changes are visibly springing up. For instance: “Suddenly hares started coming back. And in the spring now you're just seeing leverets and older hares popping up everywhere, compared to what there used to be. It's amazing.”

Just a field away from where we are standing and talking, where his grandfather used to sit and reflect, is an area where he hopes to create a new, rewilded wetland on the farm. I ask whether that means allowing the river to do its own thing, to flood in winter. But it’s a little more complicated than that. The soil erosion from intensive management has resulted in ditches lower down in the fields taking water out from the natural river system. “Whereas it would be nice to block the ditches that will shoot water back into the stream, so then it comes through and should flood down there. It's not going to be very wide but it's going to flood to that sort of depth.” 

He sees the potential for other temporary habitats, more in winter, and talks about the way Wild Woodbury fields first got flooded. It naturally created ponds and pools, rather a big, wide floodplain, which they seem to be delighted in from a wildlife perspective. Maybe we don't need to scrape it, maybe we just need to put more logs in there. 

Walking past this future wetland, back towards the house, there is a large pond. We sit together on a bench to watch the still, reflective water. There’s snipe, and kingfishers, and tufted ducks here, and a pair of mute swans. It’s clear that Arthur loves to watch the unfolding wild dramas on his doorstep, through the changing seasons, shared with his daughter. “There are three little grebes here, ducking and diving. They're always quite fun. I enjoy waiting to see where they're going to pop up again. It's great with Ida: wait for it, wait for it, and then up it pops! In spring it’s a great space for watching tadpoles – surely an essential part of every shared childhood – but there’s more toadspawn and less frogspawn. That's the joy, though, isn't it? That kind of variation in the year and the seasons. It's funny how this really is a toad spot as opposed to a frog spot.”

Arthur has had discussions with Peter Stone about integrating this pond with the wider wetland creation, but it doesn’t quite work with the topography. However, there is potential to dig out another pond nearer to the river. He’s clearly excited by bringing more wildlife, more bird species, to the landscape. “I’m quite selfish really, because it’s right next to my home and I could just pop up here and watch it all.” But if that’s true, it is selfish in a positive way: a landowner saying: I revel in increasing wildlife on my farm, I want to be able to enjoy it. The proposed wetland area is on private land without public access, but he’s open to how others could also enjoy the benefits of increasing wildlife through the project. “If we do get quite a bit more bird life, we could have a spot where people could stand and watch. If people who know about it want to just go there and look, then what harm is that doing?”.

It is something that he and other landowners (Martin Huxter included) are beginning to think about, and that this project could help promote and facilitate. With education, information, and technology – such as phone-accessible QR codes. Then specific-interest groups, or other visitors, could find out more about what is happening on the farm, and potentially arrange directly with the landowner to have access to the farm. He indicates the other side of the field, where the old Powerstock railway line goes by, and where there is already increased access as part of the estate. Some of the new wetland could easily be seen and appreciated from there, linking different natural habitats for the public to experience and enjoy.

“Nature’s resilient, and things happen when you create an ecosystem or an environment – you know it's going to benefit something. It's the surprise of what comes up, isn't it? You're waiting to be surprised by joy for what comes up.”

I tell him we'll have to catch up again in five years’ time, to reflect on what has happened that he didn't expect.