Just where do we start?
Croft Castle sits in 1400 acres of Herefordshire Parkland. For many years the parkland itself was managed by a handful of full time rangers; at the time they were called wardens. Management then was undertaken in what you might call a reactive manner, the Rangers would attend to what ever urgent work was needed at any one of the National Trust sites throughout Herefordshire.
Today it’s a very different story, each site has a dedicated full time ranger and they in turn have their own team of volunteers. Over the past almost six years I have been just one of a very dedicated group of volunteers working in the parkland at Croft Castle.
It is probably fair to say that the parkland at croft has suffered from several decades of neglect. As with any organisation there are limits to what can be done and recovering from so many years of neglect more often than not creates great frustration; what we want to do and what we do is always a matter of compromise and for the management team it is often something of a battle to obtain funds when competing with other National Trust sites that have their own projects and equally passionate groups of staff and volunteers.
Despite the above we have achieved much over the past six years and I think it is worth producing this ‘blog’ to record in words and picture the progress we have made. To the visitors of the parkland, those who follow the walks or wander through the woodland it may appear as though little happens and whilst much of what they view is a consequence of nature and the seasons, often the views and pathways are contrived for their benefit and so…. this is how we help to make it all happen.
The picture of about five years ago, is us removing many years worth of rhododendron from the Fishpool Valley
