Workshop Sessions: Celebration Evening for the 1st year of Habitats and Hillforts

Wildlife: What Wildlife Species would you like to see the project focus on

Bees and Bee Hives

Tree Sparrows

Barn Owls

Sand Lizards

Snakes

Dormouse

Bats

Habitats: What habitats would you like to see more work happen on?

Orchards

Habitat creation along sandstone trail e.g. toadflax

Rabbit Guards

Linking Woods/corridors – WT

Pond creation

Broadleaves Woodlands

Wildflower Meadows

Meres & mosses

Sponsored tree planting – involving local schools

Volunteering and training: What opportunities would you like to see available through Habitats and Hillforts?

Permaculture – Off Shoots at Burnley

Have a session on Wild flower identification, and mapping of local species

National Scheme leads local volunteers, i.e. trees. Nuts & fruit

Repeat Lichen Day

Wall restoration

At end of each training day give participants a list of groups that might benefit from volunteer support to sustain the work longer term, e.g. wildlife trust, woodland trust, Dry stone wall group

Horse Logging – make this an event to watch. Education & Conservation.

When received training – be given opportunities to put into practice

Re.word dry stone walling marketing – volunteering or training

Pull ragwort and Balsam

Watching horse logging as an activity

Hedging courses as well as walling courses

Awareness of wider partner groups and other organisations

Interpretation – website, BAP tie in.

Feedback from our facilitators

A very productive event, highlighting a number of useful points. Of particular interest where those points which complemented both wildlife and habitat. For example by creating and restoring areas of native broadleaf woodland, it should be dependant on core area size and connectivity, encourage the colonisation by the Dormouse, currently maintaining a stronghold in South west Cheshire following re-introduction.

The main difficulty for habitat creation and in some cases restoration is bringing landowners on-board. The high cost of land in Cheshire often means land-use is more desirable for horse grazing and agriculture. Whilst money is available for capital works such as tree planting, finding suitable areas of land will remain a challenge. We would welcome your thoughts on any opportunities up and down the ridge.

We hope to do more work with orchards along the ridge, such as restoration or replanting. Following from the event we have a connection with Tarporley Rotary Club and will be working in collaboration with local schools to plant trees where possible.

Education & Training: How would you like to see the project progress with this?

More digs and field work

Eventually all the book should produce a book and/permanent exhibition

Provide teacher friendly ideas for schools to promote visits and education

Burwardsley Outdoor centre – open at weekends for public

Continue to provide as much opportunity for local people to volunteer on the hillfort excavations

Use local newsletters or parish magazines for greater publicity

Invite local people to come along to hear a talk about the local area – in winter talks in village halls

Take information to local communities displays in village halls

Develop working partnerships with schools – age range key stage 2 – 7+ discuss with LEA

Bring on board universities – Keel and Manchester

Awareness of programme – leaflets to be spread throughout area

hands on for primary school children – after Woodhouse Dig took daughter to have a go – need to involve more schools. Publication very important

Enable volunteers to get involved who cannot give a full week

More field walking for volunteers

Research: What do you want to know?

Use as much new tech to provide you with as much info about the hillforts

Engage primary schools in practical archaeology

Focus on research then the other items can follow and maybe have an interpretative element in the research

Interpretation: How would you like to see us interpret the hillforts and surrounding areas?

Keep open some of woodhouse hill sections, especially those down to bedrock

Create something that can be printed out and taken on a walk – i.e. link to the other programmes

Interpretation improved

Can we have sections of archaeology open but protected so we can continue to see it?

Real excavation so that it would be available for use by schools

Links between the hillforts and the local community at the time – education of people

A little beacon or tethered hot air balloon on each hillfort to highlight they exist

How do we balance opening up through tree clearance with protecting an archaeological sites

Feedback from our facilitators:

Some very positive bits of feed back regarding the opportunities for archaeological volunteering and the desire for lots more – particularly excavation. There was also a lot of interest in linking in with local schools and from an archaeological perspective. The project has been working with the Outdoor Education Service across the ridge and there will soon be a deditcated member of staff working to deliver training through the means of the mock archaeological dig and hopefully is all goes well a new class room in the form of a round house sited at Burwardsley.

Actual research was also felt to be important in terms of learning more about the hillforts themselves, this is something the project is producing throughout the 3 years, including survey work, and training excavations both of which rely on volunteer involvement as well as helping to research and inform future management of the monuments.

It was suggested the website could be improved upon and made more use of, including having a blog of some sort. We are working at improving the website so it is more user friendly.

Interpretation: How would you like us to progress with interpretation as a whole across the ridge?

Provide a focal point and Physical focal points

Lecture style – less info – just key points

Interpretation in different ways – not just panels and leaflets

How do you keep up the projects when funding runs out

To have links with schools to ensure legacy of project

Investigative trail where public have to find icons

More interpretation outside

Artists impressions and reconstructions

Resources for teaching to allow continuation of project

Need children to visualise

Different levels of interpretation for different age groups – booklets with layers of information included. Building up over time for 7 year olds. Getting children early to spark their interest of their local environment and history

Build a real iron age house – possibly Delamere Forest

Local people don’t know about hillforts – use schools to education local people

More engagement with local schools and habitat creation – to create ownership of environment – like previous Hedging SREP projects

Leaflets for adults – how to keep them going -pdf?

Transport to and from hillforts – i.e. sandstone rambler

Parking facilities - Picnic tables and toilets

Not one size fits all individual management plans

Physical form of access or visual and understanding website

Approach and produce management plan – local landowner

Dirth of information on forts on web – eg kelsborrow

Private landowner –to much sensitive approach – individually looked at

Link to other information – Anglesey working mill – iron age house

Public transport to complement advertising – was this used long term commitment

Long term legacy to build a round house and fund the private visits could be arranged

If special access is provided to a site – rewards must be provided for the farmer

Schools curriculum based education pack

Peregrine talks – Broxton barn owls – could do web links

Rainbow – geocacheing

An old pack horse trail – salt route – this has been closed off to horses -

Multi language interpretation

Mobile – call for interpretation and blue tooth

Talking newspapers to reach visually impaired

Friends of hillforts to sustain guided walks for the visually impaired

Links via pubs – interpretation and leaflets – links with local businesses

Tree messages for feed back

Access – safe off road horse riding is necessary in this county – what has happened to this? Re. east to west

No permanent interpretation in Tattenhall

Publicity on canal locks & stopping point’s eg. Shady oak pub

Visually impaired people often miss out – large print signage

Audio tours – downloadable audio guides

Interactive boards – vandal proof – indoor/outdoor – local shops etc

Car park interpretation – output of project – similar to sandstone trail

Bickerton Lowland heath important – interpretation might help and explain the work

Details of short circular walks in car parks and leaflets - downloadable

Encourage visitors to hillforts yet encourage them to respect them

Feedback from our facilitators:

Interpretation was certainly felt necessary as part of the project. Bringing the hillforts alive in some form or manner including reconstructions, for example having the opportunity to visit a reconstruction rather than to see what is left on the ground which in some cases is very little, this would need to be complimented with information so people were aware of this option.

Leaflets were felt to be a popular use of material to inform people, the ability to follow a walk from a certain location, for example making the best use of local amenities, such as shops. Local businesses should be kept well informed about opportunities. Panels should be sited in convenient places.

It was felt there was little being made available for the visually impaired – this is something we will certainly be taking forward into our future interpretation.

Reconstructions were felt to be usefully, however these need to be backed up by factual archaeology where possible.

The provision of picnic areas and car parks where also discussed – this is a fundamental problem along the sandstone trail

The project should be utilising existing education resources in the area, developing teacher’s packs and helping to provide opportunities within the local area. This is an area the project has been working on and there will be opportunities for local schools to attend sessions at the Outdoor Education Centre in Burwardsley from early 2010.

Publicity – village newsletter would be a good thing

Potential for involvement by ground work – especially in community events

Legacy – how will training be provided after H and H – friends of ridge take forward??

Perm culture type project as base for – practical training

Join events like at Tatten Park?

Events don’t need to be looked over the ridge as a whole – a lot is already there

Be part of bigger events – not just one event.

Possible additional topics:

Ordnance survey map ready skills

Minerals and quarries along ridge

Id of wildflowers, Id of trees

Tap into existing organisations – WI/rotary

Use internet to publicise everything

Attend CWT – only one full event – Cheshire show/Nantwich Show

Events to dress up in iron age costume would be welcomed

Very positive feedback from existing courses – Dry Stone Walling, field walking, archaeology, lichens

‘Friends of the ridge’ – these people are in this room – and need to think about how to take this forward, Need to think now about what happens in 2 years

Engage younger people – age range retired – not working

Would be good to engage more with younger people and make links with academic courses

Cannot over use the internet, Use Google maps – download – improve website

Programme is valuable for those who know about it – publicity perhaps an issue

Training on biodiversity indicators

Legacy must be work for local people and tourism

Need to differentiate between training and volunteering

Feedback from our facilitators:

There was concern about whether the training programme was reaching younger people and whether the project was making the best use of existing organizations: NEET groups (young people Not in Employment, Education or Training)

The BTCV have done a lot of work on the ridge and in H&H management zones in the last couple of years with young people, and are continuing to play an active role in the delivery of the projects training.

Community involvement was felt to be a key part of the project and were keen to support the idea of the establishment of a 'Friends of the Ridge' type groups, this was acknowledged as a potential legacy of the H and H project - as such a group would be able to raise funds to support projects and training, as well as being a source of direct volunteer input to projects beyond the life of the H and H landscape partnership.

Lack of awareness about the project in local communities was an issue that was raised, as was the idea that local groups (i.e. not covering the whole ridge area, but focused on a locality) may be most effective as a way of generating a sense of community and place which has longevity through generations: the success of the Tarvin Community Woodlands Group was given as an example.

Could there be more provisions for family oriented opportunities - such as more historical themed (dressing-up!) type events as well as more wildlife themed events for families. Another point of view was that H and H could support a permaculture type project (or centre) to help demonstrate sustainable living and associated themes linked to food growing, energy, composting, resources etc. (perhaps this could be linked to what can be learned about permaculture from the prehistoric Hillfort communities lived along the ridge. This could certinaly be looked at in partnership with the BTCV’s Norley Rural Skills Centre.