How to become a leader .....

We talk a lot these days about leadership - it is really important if we want to change and get things done. For example we want the National Trust to be known as much for its countryside as it is for its mansions.

This video might help us......

Avoid the bank holiday rush with the National Trust

This year why not really make use of the long weekend and discover somewhere amazing to visit on your doorstep. With over 300 historic houses and beautiful gardens as well as stretches of stunning coast and countryside across England, Wales and Northern Ireland you’re never more than 40 minutes from a great day out.


Or if you’re going that little bit further and hitting the highways why not take the scenic route and stop off at one of our extraordinary places along the way.

Here are just some of the great places to visit near major travel routes:

Castle Drogo Devon
Castle Drogo café is located at the visitor centre, so come along and enjoy a relaxing speciality coffee, outside on our patio area. They’re also open for a traditional English breakfast served daily 8.30-10.30 and offer a wide selection of light lunches, sandwiches and cakes all made from fresh, seasonal and local produce.

Off the A30

Killerton, Devon
Six miles from Exeter, this relaxed eighteenth century estate makes an ideal place to stop for a few hours. See the famous collection of costumes or wander the sweeping grounds. Magnolias and rhododendrons, woodland walks, an ice-house and a summer-house known as the “Bear’s Hut” are just some of the highlights to be found outside.
Close to the M5

Lanhydrock, Cornwall
Going to or from Cornwall, this is a real treat. One of the most fascinating and complete late 19th-century houses in England, Lanhydrock is full of period atmosphere. There is also an adventure playground, with wobbly bridge, scramble nets and animal sculptures, to keep the kids entertained.
Off A38

Plus if the ideas below aren’t quite along your chosen route, you’ll find plenty more on google maps visit http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/main/w-vh/w-visits/w-beta-map.htm

Woodland Explorer Fun Day at Lydford Gorge

Sunday 2 May, 12 noon-3.30pm: Lots of seasonal games and activities for all the family in the orchard and woodland. Suitable for children aged 5+. Normal admission charges apply. Further information on 01822 820320 or lydfordgorge@nationaltrust.org.uk.

Moth new to science found in Hembury Woods

A moth previously unknown to science has been discovered at the National Trust’s Hembury Woods in Devon.

With the well-documented loss of British wildlife, this discovery of a new species of micro moth is even more significant given that it has been found nowhere else in the world.

This find was made by local amateur naturalist Bob Heckford. Bob has known Hembury Woods for years, and spotted the unusual bright green caterpillars of this tiny leaf-mining moth on oak saplings.

Matthew Oates, Nature Conservation Adviser at the National Trust, said: “We hear so much about the losses to the natural world, and less about the gains; which makes this find, however small, so important. Amateur naturalists have a wonderful window on the wildlife world and nature continues to amaze us and throw up surprises even in the UK.”

The moths themselves are so tiny – with a wingspan of about 6mm – that you’d have to be sharp-eyed to see them. In fact, what Bob first spotted in Hembury Woods were the tell-tale signs of mines made by the caterpillars in oak leaves. He subsequently found a few more of these caterpillars nearby.

This year, this micro moth has officially been recognised as a new species, and named after the man who discovered it – Ectoedemia heckfordi.

This find is important because one the specimens is now acknowledged by the scientific world as the ‘type’ for that species, against which any future finds will be compared and then determined.

Given the scientific value of this micro moth, a specimen will be added to world famous collection at the Natural History Museum in London. Equally importantly this find makes Hembury Woods the ‘type’ locality.

The woods near Buckfastleigh are a wildlife hot spot. The River Dart runs through the dense oak woodland, which is rich in wild flowers such as bluebells and primroses, and a special site for moths and butterflies.

Since Bob’s early days in the South West he’s had a keen interest in the natural world. He has been the first to find other micro moth species that were previously unknown in the British Isles, including one on National Trust’s land in Cornwall: and in 2006 he rediscovered an oil beetle on National Trust land in south Devon that was thought to be extinct in the British Isles.

In this the International Year of Biodiversity, it is important to pay credit to dedicated amateur naturalists such as him – the often unsung heroes of the natural world.

Matthew Oates continued: “In the UK we have some of the finest naturalists in the world and there is a real need to encourage this deep-rooted tradition of discovery in children and adults.

“This discovery was really a needle in a haystack find and it gives us a tempting insight into what might still be out there.”

This spring and summer, there are events at National Trust properties right across the country that will reveal the wealth of our hidden nature, and bring out the wild side in everyone.

Find out more at http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/wildchild

Primroses at Hembury Woods SSSI/SAC

Hembury Woods is now awash with spring flowers.


Chief amongst these is the Primrose (Primula vulgaris) so named from the Old French primerose or medieval Latin prima rosa, meaning 'first rose'.





Pale yellow with a darker yellow eye in the centre they have lines, or honeyguides, on the petals reflecting ultraviolet light which, though invisible to us, is seen by insects and directs them to the nectar in the base of the flower tube.

Primroses have two types of flowers, pin-eye and thrum-eye, which grow on different plants. Fertilisation can only take place between pin and thrum flowers. Pin to pin or thrum to thrum pollination is ineffective.
The pollen grains of thrum-eye flowers are large and only fit onto the surface of a pin-eye stigma.
The pollen grains of pin-eye flowers are small and, likewise, only fit the surface of a thrum-eye stigma.
The structure of the two flowers is neatly arranged so that visiting insects transfer the right pollen to the right stigma.

The primrose, like many wild flowers, has suffered from overcollection due to its beauty, and the recent surge of interest in wild food and foraging has not helped, with the edible petals being utilised in several recipes, though as Hugh Fearlessly Eats-It-All points out in The River Cottage Cookbook the flower is protected and any recipes utilising it should utilise garden varieties.

Thus the picking or removal of primrose plants from the wild is illegal under the UK Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, Section 13, part 1b. Further protection is afforded through SSSI and SAC designations, but sadly, picking continues. Only a year or so ago i came across a couple in Hembury Woods with a carrier bag full of primrose petals.

Finally, primrose (the county flower of Devon) in classed as an ancient woodland indicator plant in the south-west, a forthcoming blog will explore this fascinating subject further.

Burning ambition

As the Teign Valley gets busier, more and more people are noticing the large black areas of Piddledown common which lies high above the north bank of the river Teign near castle Drogo.

This is the result of deliberate burning on behalf of the National Trust.

Any one familiar with Dartmoor will have seen evidence of extensive burning of Gorse and Heather during the winter months, the Teign valley is no exception.

Called "swaling", controlled burning of areas of heathland can be an emotive issue for some people, some see it as untidy, and some as an act of vandalism, the simple truth is that heathland wouldn't be heathland without it.

Since primitive settlers arrived on Dartmoor thousands of years ago, burning has been used as a tool to create grazing from scrub and woodland, and more recently as a conservation tool.

For those of you who have never heard of Succession, here is the quick guide.

Take a large lake, over time silt is deposited on it's shores, this silt eventually stabilises and small plants begin to grow, eventually the small plants have stabilised it enough for woody shrubs to take hold, meanwhile more silt has been deposited further out and the small plants are ousted to the new lake edge. Once shrubs have established, small trees follow, the ground is rapidly becoming less silt, more soil as organic matter is deposited and worms begin their work, soon small trees give way to large ones and hey presto, what was once lakeshore is now woodland. You can see succesion everywhere, it is always happening, every part of nature is driving towards what ecologists call a "climax community", a stable state of affairs where the ecosystem largely stops changing. The climax community for England is normally considered to be an Oak woodland, though how far towards that community any individual site might get is variable, as is how long it will take to get there.

The reason succession is relevant to burning is that effectively burning "resets" succession, causing a site to continually evolve over a period of time, be burnt, and have to do it all over again. Thus a burnt site will never acheive a woodland state as long as it is burnt and will stay at the same state indefineatly.

This is a powerful tool which allows us to "pause" a habitat rather than see it lost, this is important in the modern world as there are fewer and fewer heathland habitats for species to exploit. By burning small areas, leaving adjacent ones untouched, and having sites regrowing means that we always have enough habitat of the right sort for many important and rare heathland species. Swaling is normally carried out over at least a seven year cycle, and no areas are burnt more frequently than this. Burning releases nutrients for the next generation of plants to utilise.

Burning is from October to March, and is dependant on the weather to dry the ground. Burns are controlled by picking the right weather conditions, cutting fire breaks into the heath, and fire beaters.

It is our hope that with a continued cycle of burning, coupled with bracken control, selective felling and grazing by Dartmoor ponies, we can maintain and improve our heathland habitat.

Plymouth Unlocked

This bank holiday weekend, we are taking the National Trust to town and the people of Plymouth, launching an attempt to bust perceptions and show off what we have to offer in terms of open space, countryside and coast, as well as houses and gardens.


The properties that surround Plymouth (Cotehele/Saltram/South Devon/Dartmoor/Plym Bridge/Buckland) have come together to create an event which will represent the start of us working together to engage with the residents of Plymouth.

From 10am - 5pm, this Saturday and Sunday, on the Piazza (outside House of Fraser) in Plymouth City Centre, the public will have a chance to see just how much there is to do when they visit Trust places by visiting our marquee - from trying on costumes to building mini-dry stone walls, and from attempting a climbing wall to waxing surfboards. All activities on offer are free. We are also using the two days as time to gain valuable feedback on what people think of us.

It's the outdoors that we are really emphasising, to encourage people to discover what is on their doorsteps, often for free. We want to encourage people to discover the outdoors, to try new things, and through doing this, hopefully visiting some of the beautiful places in our care.

Welcome to the world of geocaching

Thanks to Jonathan Crawford of Newton Abbot who is an NT supporter we have this really useful introduction to geocaching.

'Visitors to Parke Estate might be surprised to know that several treasure troves are hidden there and can be found by anyone with a GPS receiver (Global Positioning System) and a spare hour or two to hunt them down. The treasure is normally found in Tupperware type containers hidden from view underneath rocks, in amongst tree roots or tucked away behind a fence post. But before you go out and buy yourself a GPS receiver and set off to make your fortune recovering gold and precious gems from the Bovey Valley you should know that the ‘treasure’ is normally of very limited value to anyone over the age of, say, eight. Welcome to the world of Geocaching.

Geocaching is often described as a high tech treasure hunt, participants log on to a website (such as www.geocaching.com) where they can retrieve coordinates (given in Latitude & Longitude format) and clues which will then help them find the caches which are laid by other ‘players’ of the game. Sometimes players will have to decipher codes or solve puzzles before a cache can be found, but more often than not they can be found with a GPS and a simple clue published on the website.

Geocaching is a worldwide game and at the time of writing there are 1,048,313 caches laid all over the world; there is even one in orbiting the Earth in the International Space Station. Parke has four geocaches which are all located close to paths so that searchers do not inadvertently disturb wildlife or trample vegetation.

The geocache itself can vary in size from a container not much bigger than a peanut to something resembling a large cake tin. Inside you will always find a piece of paper on which you can record your name and you may also find a pencil or pen and a few pieces of ‘treasure’ (normally trinkets like badges or keyrings) that can be traded by children.

When they find a geocache searchers will record their name, date of visit and normally some appreciative comment in the logbook. Children might also like to take some treasure so long as they leave something in it’s place. The cache is then re-hidden for the next person to find.

Geocachers are a wide and varied group of people and range from families with small children who enjoy the thrill of finding hidden treasure to retired people looking for an excuse to get out and find new walks and places to explore. The first thing that almost everyone discovers when they start geocaching is that they don’t know their own ‘patch’ nearly as well as they thought they did. Geocaches are laid by people who want to introduce others to places that they think are special, many are well off the beaten track and encourage people to visit places that hitherto they had been entirely ignorant of.'

Penrose Outdoor Gym on the Lizard

This is fun!



Visit the Lizard and Penrose NT blog here

Family Woodland Sculpture Day - Lydford Gorge

Sunday 25 April, 12 noon-3pm:

Create fabulous wooden animal sculptures using wood and basic hand tools. Suitable for ages 7+. £2 per sculpture. Normal admission charges apply.

Vintage Car Rally at Finch Foundry

Saturday 24 April, 11am-4.30pm: A free display of some of the best vintage vehicles in the area. Normal admission charges apply. Further information on 01837 840046 or finchfoundry@nationaltrust.org.uk.

Another Lydford Gorge video

Another video from one of our visitors - Helen Dunn - this time of the Devil's Cauldron



Thanks Helen

Animal Houses, Plymbridge Woods

Thursday 15 April, 10am-1pm: Build a bat, dormouse or bird box and learn about where they live in the wild. All materials supplied and you can take your box home. Child £6. Meet at Plym Bridge, grid ref SX 524 585. Booking essential (Monday to Friday only) on 01752 341377 or dartmoor@nationaltrust.org.uk.

Saxon Pot Making, Lydford Gorge

Wednesday 14 April, 2-4pm: Make a clay pot, Saxon style! Suitable for children aged 4-12 years. £2 per pot. Normal admission charges apply. Tel: 01822 820320 for information of email lydfordgorge@nationaltrust.org.uk.

Fire Starting through the Ages - Lydford Gorge

Saturday 10 April, 12 noon, 2pm and 3.30pm: Demonstrations will show this essential ancient skill and the different techniques used. Suitable for ages 11+. £3 per person (normal admission charges apply). Booking essential on 01822 820320.

Children's Bird & Nest Day - Lydford Gorge

Thursday 8 April, 1-4pm: Construct a giant nest, build a bird box, make masks and finger puppets and bird feeders. Child £2 for activities (excluding bird box). £4 per bird box. Normal admission charges apply. Tel: 01822 820320 for information.

Picnic at Plymbridge

It's official! Our first picnic / BBQ tables are in use at Plym Valley. The first two of four tables are now in place and were used for the first time on Easter Sunday during our Easter egg hunt. The tables have been specially adapted to take a disposable barbeque so now you can enjoy eating at Plymbridge without worrying about scorching the ground or needing a rug to sit on, you can picnic and barbeque in comfort. The family in this picture were the first people to use them and said it was great to see the tables in Plymbridge and it was a lovely idea. They often come down to Plymbridge and will certainly be using the tables in the summer.
Keep an eye out for the others over the next couple of weeks and let us know what you think of them. We will be producing a downloadable map of where the tables are in the near future so keep watching this blog.

Easter in Widecombe

Art In Widecombe - by Widecombe Primary School

The pupils at Widecombe Primary School have been really busy and produced an amazing number of pictures.

The picture on the left is showing lots of lovely easter scene painted by Webburn Class.

Come and visit the National Trust shop in Widecombe and vote for your favourite picture in each class for the pupils to win a prize.

There are 3 different classes participating with vibrant colourful pictures of Daffodils and Tulips as well.

Lower Dart Class Upper Dart Class

The shop is open from 10.30 to 4.30pm every day over Easter - plenty of time for you to view the pictures and have a go at our Easter Egg Trail with a chocolate easter egg prize.

Dewerstone Outdoors Activity Centre

Great meeting today at Dewerstone Cottage - we planning to re-open the place as the Dartmoor Outdoor Activity Centre. A place where you will be able to learn to rock climb, kayak, mountain bike, mountain navigate etc etc with the National Trust. Will also be a base for 10 Tors groups and Duke of Edinburgh expeditions. Lots of work still do do but we think this is a great project. We will keep you up to date with progress.