At the beginning of 2026 we made the decision to turn part of our hill farm into a Private Nature Reserve. The land is designated as heath and moorland and joins the common grazing land of the Preseli hills. Since we became custodians of the farm in 2001 we have been reducing the number of sheep (it had been heavily over-grazed and was not suitable to any kind of land improvement due to its topography), in order to see what would happen. We have seen lots of wild flowers and trees begin to flourish which in turn should attract more birds and animals. We have also seen an increase in reeds and bracken which need controlling otherwise they will take over.

Over the coming months we will be defining the different areas and working out what needs to be done to encourage healthy natural habitats. We’ll create some paths and bridges to make it more accessible, manage gorse, bracken and brambles, plant trees and put up nesting boxes.

Firstly, we are putting out as many trail cameras as we can so that we can log everything (yes, EVERYTHING) that lives here, birds, flowers, trees, lichen, bugs, beetles, moths, butterflies, funghi, animals and whatever else we have forgotten!

This is going to be a long but incredible and worthwhile project to protect and conserve this beautiful part of the Preseli hills for generations to come.

Very soon we will be creating the web site to log all the flora and fauna and we will also be posting it all on social media, keep an eye on this page for the start of our adventure