MWHG Newsletter: 11th May 2026
- MWHG Team
- 1 day ago
- 11 min read
Dear Volunteers and Supporters,
We have lots of updates to share in this edition of the newsletter, from the unveiling of a new commemorative Selsey Blue Plaque to a water-meadow book recommendation. Also included is a reminder of our two upcoming free Nature days taking place in June - read on for full details.
Vera Buxton-Knight
By Joe Savill | Selsey Heritage Trail
On Saturday 25th April a new plaque was unveiled to recognise Vera Buxton-Knight at ‘Redhatch’, Vincent Road, Selsey, which was once her home. Vera was a central figure in helping lead Selsey’s civil defence in World War II, through her key roles in the Women’s Voluntary Service, the Red Cross, Air raid precautions and the Ambulance Service. And she not only served the Selsey Community at this critical time but continued to do so, through fundraising, welfare work and support for local causes, until her death in 1969. She was a woman of indomitable spirit.
The plaque was unveiled by the St John Ambulance Area President, Derek Jones surrounded by invited guests, which included five of Vera’s grandchildren, members of organisations she was involved with, representatives from Selsey Town Council, MWHG members as well as local residents. Two of her grandchildren spoke movingly about their memories of their beloved ‘Gan Gan’ and their lives in Selsey.
The event was organised by Nicky and David Jones, the owners of Redhatch, and after the unveiling they hosted afternoon tea for everyone in the garden where we were entertained with live singing of World War II songs. There was also the opportunity to learn more about Vera’s life through displays of photos and newspaper articles.
It was a wonderful occasion, in beautiful weather, and huge thanks go to Nicky and David for creating such a lovely afternoon, as well as to Nicky for all her meticulous research of Vera’s life.
Vera will feature as one of the women being celebrated as part of the ChichestHER Exhibition in the Novium in October. So, look out for this.
This is the 15th plaque in the trail and, most significantly, the first to recognise a woman. If you have any suggestions of other Selsey people who you think deserve a blue plaque, do get in touch.
Joe Savill
Wittering Area Community Conservation Project
By Jane Reeve | Wittering Area Community Conservation Project
We have been as busy as ever on this project and have had some new jobs as bird breeding season is in full swing and there is no vegetation cutting. We finished off planting a new native hedge across the large open field north of Cakeham Road to create some wildlife corridors against the ditches and to break up the wind. This was hard work as it was very windy and involved a half kilometre walk across the muddy field and the ground was starting to harden up. But this is a good job done and it was great to finish off something we started in October.
Once the last trees were in the ground, we switched activities to start wildflower seeding different sites. We started at a new site in the corner of what had previously been an intensely farmed arable field. We planted a handful of trees to open up the compacted soil and then raked over the site to thin some of the grasses and then seeded it with a mixture of native and American Prairie wildflowers. This will be a challenging site as it is right next to the sea so is scoured by salt laden winds. It is also very wet from October to March and then dries out. By putting in a good range of wildflower seeds, some coastal specialists, we hope something will take, thrive and spread.
We then turned our attention to one of our favourite sites, Triangle Pond, Birdham, where we had to weed the path as creeping thistle was invading, and also cleared an area to reseed with shaded specific wildflower seeds. This small site was covered in native daffodils, primroses, flowering blackthorn and fruit trees and some bright and cheerful marsh marigold. The path was re-mulched with some woodchip and looked very smart by the end.
We have also turned our attention to seeing some West Wittering sites with a session at the Village Green and then the bus stop area. These are quite different areas with the Green heavily used and walked across while the bus stop area is relatively untouched and grows tall with Cow Parsley this time of year. We had some help at this site with a team from WSP, an engineering consultancy, and they made light work of removing the turf from the hard ground to expose bare soil for the wildflower seeds.
There are other patches of wildflowers developing across this small area from previous year’s work and it is interesting to see which perennials return and are doing well. A removed tree has offered some more light potential, and we will monitor the progress of our seedlings. Last autumn we had an amazing find of a harvest mouse nest here, so we know that this small jewel of a green space is important to those hidden species that we don’t get to see.
We have also started our species surveying program across our sites and enjoyed a lovely morning and Hilton Park Pond collecting floral, insect and bird data. We saw a large Water vole feeding station and latrine. One of the first for this site, and some very small Moorhen chicks. This pond started out as a rubbish dump so to see it now as a valuable habitat for water voles and many other species is great.
As we look to the rest of May and into June, we will be continuing with our species surveys across our sites and also focussing on the up-and-coming churchyard-based family engagement events. We could do with lots of help with these so do please come along, it is super fun and no experience needed.
Jane, Project Officer, Community Conservation Project
Beryl James Tree Nursery
By Joe Savill | The Beryl James Tree Nursery
Thankfully, many of the tree seeds that we collected last autumn have germinated, with the help of the fridge for some species. We now have a variety of seedlings growing including Crab Apple, Blackthorn, Oak, Sweet Chestnut, Hazel and Field Maple. All these are still too small to plant at the nursery, including some Alder, Birch and Wild Rose from 2024. Until they are ready, they are being cared for in various gardens and at The Hidden Garden in Selsey. If you would be happy to foster some baby trees for us next year or grow some from seed yourself, please get in touch.
The volunteer team that is running the nursery is a small one and we are all involved in other projects, so we really need some extra hands and minds to help manage the nursery, in all aspects, going forward. Time commitment varies throughout the year, with spring and autumn usually being the busiest. Growing trees from local seed is such a worthwhile task and it’s really heartwarming when they’ve grown strong enough to be lifted and planted out across the Manhood, to deliver all their benefits to biodiversity and the wider environment, in relation to climate change.
Please do consider joining us and help shape the nursery’s future. The more trees we can grow locally, the better.
Also, please contact me if you have young trees to donate or have ideas about where you would like to see trees planted in the Selsey area.
Joe Savill
Heritage News
By Bill Martin | Our Heritage, Selsey Tramway Project, Sidlesham Heritage Project
Heritage
The Heritage section of the MWHG website has been updated, including the addition of interactive maps showing an audit of heritage assets across each parish on the Manhood Peninsula. Explore the new Our Heritage area here: www.mwhg.org.uk/heritage
The Selsey Tramway Exhibition at the Novium has been extended until July. The Novium is open Tuesday - Friday 10.00am-4.30pm, Saturday 10.00am-5.00pm Closed Sunday & Monday. Thanks to a grant from Selsey Town Council, two damaged information boards will now be replaced.
Land Settlement Association Project
Staff at the Weald and Downland Living Museum have started the fund raising process to rebuild the LSA house.
Pictured left Janet Shirt grandmother cc1957 at 144No 144 with Geoffrey Shirt's wife and daughter.
Sidlesham WI closed this year after 98 years, 2 short of it's 100. The balance of their funds was donated to the Weald and Downland Living Museum in recognition of all its members who were also on the Land Settlement. Part of the overall fundraising strategy will involve 'Buy A Memory' whereby people will be able to donate on behalf of former LSA tenant or staff and have their name displayed in the house. My personal challenge is to get a memory from each of the 20 LSAs.
Nature Days
By Emma Horton
Over the last few years, the Manhood Wildlife and Heritage Group have organised an increasing number of free, family-friendly, community events to allow children and their families to engage with nature and take part in a range of wildlife activities.
Our first Nature Day of 2026 took place last Saturday 2nd May, in and around the lovely venue of St. Mary’s Churchyard, in Sidlesham. We were supported by Father Chris and his wife Carolyn, plus many of our amazing volunteers, who gave up many hours of their time to help set up and run wildlife activities and pack away afterwards. Thank you to everyone involved who made the Sidlesham nature day such a success. We’ve had lots of positive feedback to say how much the children enjoyed the day.
Many families took advantage of the lovely weather and had fun outdoors, exploring the extensive and biodiverse church grounds conducting nature trails and bug hunts, some even finding slow worms. We had a range of nature activities to suit everyone, from crafts such as making model dragonflies and animal masks, to practical projects such as decorating bird boxes, building bug houses, planting sunflowers and making wildflower seed bombs.
There was the chance for children to learn more about our native wildlife by looking at our collection of natural treasures including snake skins, birds’ nests and the intricate honey- comb structure of a wasp’s nest. Youngsters are always fascinated by dissecting owl pellets to discover the skulls and other bones of the owl’s prey. Special thanks to Mark who brought in his barn owl and shared his knowledge of ornithology. Pond dipping was also very popular and educational, with children able to view first hand, the tiny pond creatures.
We have two further nature days coming up on the Manhood Peninsula at other locations so don’t worry if you missed the last event! See below for details…
Itchenor Nature Day
10am-1pm
Saturday 6th of June
Itchenor Memorial Hall, Itchenor Road, PO20 7DL
West Wittering Nature Day
10am-1pm
Saturday 13th of June
St. Peter and St. Pauls Church
Pound Road, West Wittering, PO20 8AJ
CPRE Hedgerow Heroes Project
By Jane Reeve | Hedgerow Heroes Project
The CPRE funded Hedgerow Heroes Project finished at the end of March 2026 but in the last newsletter we had just planted our target 10,000 trees creating 2 kilometres of new native hedges at Ham, but in the last few weeks of the project we achieved even more.
With a brilliant team of mainly MWHG volunteers 5,000 more trees were planted at Chalder Farm, just north of RSPB PHNR to re-enforce the wildlife corridors across the fields and to again, reduce soil erosion into the waterways. We exceeded expectation by planting 50% more trees and so our total was 3 kilometres of new hedgerows planted with this project. We were helped in those last few weeks by a continual stream of Caroline’s Diary ice-cream provided by the farmer, Chris Spiby. He turned up every break time to ensure blood sugar and energy levels were maintained and also was generous with his time in talking to the volunteers and explaining his farming methods, what he was doing on the land, how he tries to work with wildlife etc.
Even though the project has finished I am out every month now to check on the trees to see how they are doing and to see if any guard replacing or standing up needs to happen. The trees are really leafing up and looking good. The odd wet week through the summer may not be welcome by us but would do the trees the world of good.
It is worth reflecting on how many trees the MWHG have planted over the previous 3 winters across the Manhood Peninsula:
23/24 at Highleigh planted 5505 trees making 1,100 metres of new hedge
24/25 in South Mundham planted 4342 trees making 870 metres of new hedge
25/26 in West Wittering planted 5535 trees making 1107 metres of new hedge
25/26 in Ham and Sidlesham planted 15,000 trees making 3 kilometres of new hedge
Total trees planted into hedges in the last 3 years = 30,382 which makes over 6 kms of new native hedge.
I must mention my Tuesday Tree Planting Club who have come out over the last 3 years and committed to tree planting despite the weather, the mud and the long walks. Thank you, couldn't have achieved this without you guys, it has been a good craic! The thought of your cheerful faces has got me out of bed on those cold, wet and early dark mornings and the knowledge that we will get these baby trees into their forever homes!
Jane Reeve, Hedgerow Heroes Project Officer
Book Recommendation: Amberley Wild Brooks
By Jill Sutcliffe | Amberley Wild Brooks (2026)
A delightful book, written by botanist Frances Abraham who lives in the Parish of Ebernoe, has just been published. The Amberley Wild Brooks is an area of water meadows and drainage ditches spreading out alongside the River Arun which is well known for its rich wetland wildlife and especially for its remarkable flora.
Published in February by the Sussex Botanical Recording Society (SBRS), this important volume seeks to explain how and why these Wild Brooks have come to support such a varied and fascinating flora including many plants which are rare.
Part 1 covers the geology, environmental and human history including the 1978 Public Inquiry, the work of the early botanists and different forms of management. Part 2 includes a detailed account of the present day flora and the varied habitats found there; and Part 3 consists of an annotated plant list recorded on the site over the years. Amberley Wild Brooks is one of the Sussex Wildlife Trust (SWT) reserves.
Vitacress Survey Work
By Joe Savill | Vitacress Biodiversity Management Plan
Our surveys at Vitacress Herbs Runcton site are beginning again soon. Our surveys at Vitacress Herbs Runcton site are beginning again soon. But, unfortunately, several members of the team have had to put their involvement on hold for the moment, so we need more help if we are going to complete the number of surveys we would like.
The surveys involve walking around the perimeter of the site recording birds, butterflies and pollinators. You only need basic ID knowledge of birds and butterflies, and the pollinators are recorded in their main groups, so you only need to be able to distinguish a beetle from a bumblebee etc. It’s a lovely, peaceful site to stroll around, full of different habitats and it only takes about an hour and a half to complete.
The Vitacress staff are always very welcoming and it’s great to be supporting a business that is really focussed on helping wildlife.
Do please have a think about joining us, you won’t regret it. I always return from the surveys feeling more relaxed and refreshed from being immersed in nature for a while and sometimes I’ve learnt or seen something new.
Vitacress are always looking at providing free wildlife survey training for us too so there’s plenty of opportunity to extend your ID skills, so do consider helping us.
Joe Savill
Wildlife Survey Results
By Nikki Timney | Find Wildlife From Home Survey
Throughout March and April, our volunteers and supporters submitted 55 wildlife records, including 73 individuals in total. This brings the grand total of records submitted for the Find Wildlife From Home survey to 1,993!
See a selection of the photos and survey results we received over the last couple of months, below.
Survey Results for March and April
2 Brimstone Butterflies | 2 Buff-tailed Bumblebees | 5 7-Spot Ladybirds |
18 Robins | 1 Holly Blue Butterfly | 1 Orange-tip Butterfly |
Tell us about the wildlife you've seen in your garden, neighbourhood and surrounding local area and we will also submit your records to the National Biological Records Centre on your behalf.
To take part in our wildlife survey, click on the button below.
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