Nature reserve opened at Bere Marsh Farm to honour
Angela Hughes: legendary, inspirational pioneer of wildlife conservation and farming

Friday 24 June saw the sunshine in celebration of the new nature reserve being opened at Bere Marsh Farm, dedicated to the memory of Angela Hughes, an absolute legend in North Dorset as far as nature conservation and farming is concerned.

The loving memory of one of Dorset’s most iconic and inspirational pioneers of farming and wildlife, Mrs Angela Hughes, was honoured on 24 June with a specially created nature reserve on the land where she first turned her vision into reality.

Mrs Hughes, as she was known to everyone but her very closest friends, was awarded an OBE for her services to conservation

The new nature reserve at Bere Marsh Farm in Shillingstone, Blandford Forum, has been fulfilled by the Countryside Regeneration Trust (CRT), breathing new life into the 92 acres it committed to help thrive as Mrs Hughes’s inspiring legacy.

“This is our way of honouring Mrs Hughes and all the magnificent work she did in demonstrating all those years ago how farming and wildlife could holistically work together,” says Danielle Dewe, chief executive of the CRT. “She was both a pioneer and an inspiration, so we hope that the reserve is a fitting tribute to her wonderful memory.”

A personal tribute

Upon cutting the ribbon that marked a tree-lined corridor rich in birdsong, wildflowers, bees and all manner of small mammals that are testament to her mother’s foresight and conservation commitment, Angela’s daughter, Fiona Gerardin, said, “This is the perfect way of reflecting my Mum’s lifetime of work. She absolutely loved the area where the reserve has been created and talked so much of the plans that she had for it.

“I am so pleased that the CRT bought the farm because they are sensitively reflecting all that she believed in and worked hard to achieve. It holds so many memories for me that it is reassuring to know the place is in good hands.

“The nature reserve has been created on the old, disused Somerset and Dorset Railway Line which runs through Bere Marsh Farm, a piece of land which particularly inspired Angela because of its rich diversity of wildlife created by the man-made embankments and cuttings.”

A phenomenal history

Angela, one of the founders of Dorset Wildlife Trust, bought Bere Marsh Farm in 1971 to add to another family-owned farm, East Farm, at nearby Hammoon.

As well as managing a herd of dairy cattle (and goats), she still found the time to forge a second ground-breaking career in wildlife conservation, advocating its fusion with agriculture and organic farming.

A keen ornithologist and wildlife filmmaker, she also founded the nearby Ham Down Woodland Burial Ground and in 1982 was awarded the OBE for her services to conservation and nature.

“My mother, who was so well known in the locality and Dorset-wide, was a founder member of the Dorset Wildlife Trust and Portland Bill Observatory,” says Fiona. “She involved all her (Dorset) life with the NFU, the CLA, the local Red Cross and Sturminster Newton Town Council (she managed to get them to ban bird-harming pesticides in the 1960s). She was determined to convince post-war farmers to stop pulling out hedges and destroying habitat, and instead join her and her small band of like-minded conservationist farmers to conserve and encourage wildlife within their farming structure.

“She was a formidable woman. One always called her Mrs Hughes unless you knew her really well!

“Her knowledge of the natural world: ornithology (her first love: she worked with Sir Peter Scott in the 1950s), insects, bats (we would often sit by the river Stour at dusk with her bat detector), wildflowers (she counted the cowslips religiously on the old railway line every year), trees, grasses… was astounding.

“I remember so well when she was chosen to run the Otter Release Project in Dorset in the 1990s, everyone was sworn to secrecy: she had to feed and then release over a period of a few months two otters which were kept in the middle of the farm in a specially built enclosure. Now the Dorset otter population is thriving.

“Her whole life was an adventure in understanding how the natural world was so important to the human race and she knew that starting even in a small way would lead to bigger things, hence her constant recording and counting of everything on the farm, a fantastic record for the CRT to have to be able to compare with today.

“I am so proud, and feel sure my mother would be pleased that the CRT have formed a legacy in her name that will only encourage more of the way she believed wildlife should be honoured.”