Call of the Curlew
Ughill Farm: a special place for curlews, but for how long?
Ughill Farm is low grade, marginal farmland on the western edge of Sheffield. It is an important site for curlews, golden plover and other nationally threatened wading birds that come to our moors each spring in order to breed. The farm also includes a small area of the internationally important Eastern Moors Site of Special Scientific Interest and lies within the Peak District National Park.
Temporarily saved
So when the 330 acre farmland came up for sale, we knew we had to do all we could to save the land – and the curlew – from more intensive agriculture as has happened elsewhere in the area.
Thankfully, with the support of the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation, Ughill Farm has now been temporarily saved.
But we only have a year to pay back the Foundation in order for the Trust to own the land forever or it will once again go on to the open market.
Securing Ughill Farm for the future
We need your help to raise £1 million and keep the Ughill curlews safe forever.
As you can imagine, we are working hard to raise the money to secure Ughill Farm as a ‘nature-friendly farm’. Working with the wider farming community, we hope it will be a place where we can test practical environmental land management solutions that balance nature and farming.
It is a big challenge, but an even bigger opportunity. We will be launching a public appeal in coming months, but we wanted you, our members, to be the first to know the good news about the farm. With your support we can give Ughill Farm a great future as a much-needed haven for wildlife in our uplands.
About Ughill Farm
We are working hard to secure Ughill Farm for the future, for both facilitating nature recovery and to test and learn nature-friendly farming practices.
Internationally Important Habitat
The farm includes a section of internationally designated heathland and an important habitat for breeding waders. The site’s importance was recently emphasised to the Trust by Natural England, who contacted us encouraging purchase of the land. They are concerned the habitats could be lost if subject to more intensive agricultural practice, as has happened elsewhere in the area.
Site of Special Scientific Interest and Special Protection Area
The Ughill Farm land lies within the Sheffield Lakeland Landscape area. It is 345 acres and
comprises a mixture of ‘improved’ pasture, rough pasture, woodland/stream corridor, an old quarry (now a mosaic heath habitat with a small water body) and a piece of land that is part of the Eastern Moors Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) and Special Protection Area
(SPA).
The SSSI and SPA, which this farm would help to buffer and extend, includes:
- primary habitats of European importance: dry heaths, blanket bogs and old sessile oak woods.
- habitats of secondary importance: dry heaths, transition mires, and quaking bogs.
- extensive tracts of semi-natural moorland habitats, including upland heath and blanket bog.
- habitat of European importance for several upland breeding species, including birds of prey, waders and migratory birds such as merlin, golden plover and dunlin.
- rejuvenating dry heath on quarry spoil, unimproved acid grassland designated as SSSI.
- undesignated acid grassland, improved and semi-improved grassland and three small fields of clover ley.
- an interesting headwater stream which is partially wooded.
The farm is partially designated under the Countryside Stewardship agri-environment
scheme as a priority area for declining Upland Breeding Birds, i.e. curlew, lapwing and snipe.
Contributing to nature’s recovery
Owning, managing and using this land for nature friendly farming, will make a significant contribution to our ambition of ensuring 30% of land and water is good for nature by 2030.
We need your help to raise £1 million and keep the Ughill curlews safe forever.
Add your donation
We need your support to help us secure Ughill Farm for the future! Initial donations are welcome and appreciated now ahead of a wider appeal coming soon:
For more information on the Ughill Farm appeal please contact Alison Gardner on a.gardner@wildsheffield.com.
Curlew and Chicks
Short film of curlew and their chicks, courtesy and copyright of Nicola S / ALL MEDIA.
An Expert’s View
Chris Tomson, Trustee and Independent Conservation Advisor, writes:
Sheffield & Rotherham Wildlife Trust’s purchase of Ughill Farm could not come at a better time. Agriculture is entering a new era with a major transition in the way government financially supports the farming industry in England.
Farmers whose main role is to produce sustainable food from their land are now also being encouraged to deliver public goods which include biodiversity, clean air, clean water, flood management and carbon sequestration with financial support from Defra’s new Environmental Land Management Scheme (ELMS).
Upland farming is well placed to deliver these public goods alongside traditional sheep and cattle production and maintenance of the landscape beloved by tourists if the remuneration from ELMS is competitive.
Ughill gives the Trust an opportunity to join this new era of farming and environmental enhancement to farm the land sympathetically with nature, aiming to demonstrate to our members, decision makers and others that sound commercial, sustainable farming, together with enhancing our wildlife and natural resources is achievable.
There are already a lot of nature friendly farmers working to enhance our environment, Ughill gives us the chance to join them.
Our Proposed Approach for Ughill Farm
Strategic Importance of Ughill Farm
The opportunity to purchase this land has come at a key time and in a strategically important location. The Trust are already working with a number of farms in the area on a DEFRA Environmental Land Management Schemes (ELMS) Test & Trial. We are part of an existing farm cluster group and have built relationships with the local farming community.
Owning, managing and using this land for nature friendly farming, will make a significant contribution to our ambition of ensuring 30% of land and water is good for nature by 2030.
This is a long-term project and a comprehensive plan is currently being drawn up by a team at Sheffield & Rotherham Wildlife Trust (SRWT) which includes Roy Mosley, who has over 20 years’ experience as SRWT’s Head of Conservation, and Trustee Chris Tomson, whose experience includes 20 years managing farms in the Ewden Valley, close to Ughill, and 13 years as Farms Conservation Adviser with RSPB. Additionally, the management team will be using the most up to date research and knowledge in nature-friendly farming techniques, and will have the opportunity to test innovative methods at Ughill Farm. These findings and results will be shared with other landowners in the local community and wider region in order to help inform farming techniques and increase biodiversity on their land.
Benefits to the local community include the opportunity to get involved in the project, including its management and monitoring, potential reductions in downstream flood risk, and as biodiversity improves – encouraging, for example, a wider variety of wildflowers – the appearance will also improve, encouraging wellbeing through providing an increasingly popular area for walkers and cyclists.
Managing the land
We intend to farm the land using a low intensity farming model that has been tried and tested elsewhere. By balancing the level of stock with nature in mind, fewer inputs (feed, fertiliser, seed, glyphosate, machinery etc.) are required to maintain the pastures.
The Trust has decades of experience in managing a similar upland site at Blacka Moor and has been working closely with local farmers in our Sheffield Lakeland partnership for the last seven years. Ughill Farm will provide us with an opportunity to test economic, low input, nature-rich farming practices in an area important for breeding waders, and for its moorland fringe, upper catchment and woodland habitats.
Involving Our Community
Approaching management of the land in this way is sure to capture the imagination of the Sheffield and Rotherham community. There will be opportunities to volunteer and be involved, to support the monitoring, aid evidence gathering and learn about the ecology and land management. We have links with the two Universities in the city and plan to provide opportunities for student work experience in these specialist areas. The land includes a byway open to all traffic (BOAT) running through the site which will ensure that walkers, cyclists and visitors can visit the farm, whilst protecting the land for wildlife.