MWHG Newsletter: 19th January 2026

MWHG Team
7 days ago
8 min read

Dear Volunteers and Supporters,

We will be running an apple tree pruning session in the Sidlesham Orchard on Saturday 28^th February from 9:30 - 12:30. You don't need any experience, we provide all the tools and will show you what to do. If you are unsure how to prune your own fruit trees this is a great opportunity to practise with a friendly group. The Sidlesham Orchard is located behind the Sidlesham Memorial Hall on the Selsey Road, there's plenty of parking in front of the hall. Please RSVP to Jane Reeve (click link).

Read on to learn about the exciting work our project leaders and volunteers have been busy delivering.

Wittering Area Community Conservation Project

By Jane Reeve | Wittering Area Community Conservation Project

At the end of November last year, we managed to finish planting up a hedge in West Wittering that we didn’t quite get to the end of last year. It was very satisfying to put in the last 400 trees and to get this done. We had the new and innovative technique of using a drill bit to get through the tough clay at this site which speeded things up no end!

We had a quiet December on the volunteering front, as I recovered from an operation, but we did manage to fit in a Christmas get together so that cards could be swapped and everyone could have a mince pie to get into the Xmas spirit.

We are now into 2026 and have a large project to complete in West Wittering by the 16th February 2026. West Wittering Parish Council successfully gained 2580 trees from Chichester District Council (CDC) for a new hedge line along the cycle path on Cakeham Road so we will be planting trees along this section over the coming months, lots of help needed please😊.

There is a deadline imposed by CDC to get this done so please do come and help us out. Planting days will be Thursdays and Fridays and we don’t just need people to dig, but also to put the trees in the holes, wrap the trees in tree guards and put out bamboo canes. Any time you can give will really help us. This will become a great wildlife corridor and help to break up the wind on this very open site.

Emma has been busy again with delivering Wildlife Warriors sessions at East Wittering and West Wittering Primary Schools. They have been welcomed very warmly, and their activities are much appreciated by the children. Thank you to the volunteers that have helped with the sessions, many hands are needed and it has been really enjoyable. The activities have included setting up a hedgehog house, litter picking, and bird feeder making with pine cones.

The Pollinator Highway

By Lesley Bromley | Selsey Pollinator Highway

The group managing the Pollinator Highway sites met in December to review all the activity of the summer and to plan the work for next year. Manhood Wildlife and Heritage Group work on this project with members of Wilder Selsey, and The Hidden Garden.

We have sites in Selsey, Merryfield Drive, East Bank, Denshare Road and West Street and now also in Sidlesham on the southern end of the Sidlesham Straight. This summer we were able to survey the Selsey sites, looking at both flower and insect species, and estimating the percentage of grass to wild flowers at each site. As we have added sites each year we are seeing a change as the sites are left longer with no regular mowing.

Our big effort is always the mowing and raking of the sites in the Autumn. This year we had some help from a volunteer group from Pfizer ltd, who worked hard and appreciated the traditional MWHG offering of home made cake and drinks, hot and cold!

Next year we are considering 2 new sites in Selsey and will be consulting with the residents over the winter.

We are always happy to have help with the surveying, and if you would like to join us, but aren’t sure what is involved, we will be running a training session (or two) in May. Watch out for more details!

Heritage News

By Bill Martin | Selsey Tramway Project, Sidlesham Heritage Project

BBC Sounds

We now have three podcasts in the Secret Sussex Series on BBC Sounds - Surprising Selsey, The Hapless Sidlesham Snail, and The Sidlesham Experiment.

BBC Sussex

BBC Sussex reported that the Weald and Downland Living Museum has started fund raising to rebuild the LSA house. It was also recorded on their Facebook and received 37 comments, some from new contacts related to former LSA tenants.

Weald and Downland Living Museum

The Weald and Downland Living Museum has updated its website to include the LSA Project - Our LSA Building: A Part of Britain's Rural Revolution.

Novium Museum

The exhibition on the Selsey Tramway at The Novium, including our film, continues until the end of March. The Novium is open: Tuesday - Friday, 10am - 4.30pm, Saturday 10am - 5pm. Closed Sunday and Monday.

Selsey Tramway

MWHG volunteers continue to clear bramble and undergrowth from the platform of Chalder Station. Meanwhile negotiations continue with the Church Commissioners to secure their permission to progress the restoration of the site.

SWALK

By Sue Martin | Sidlesham Walk & Lunch Klub

In August 2009 eight friends walked to The Lamb at Pagham for lunch. 16 years later and SWALK is still organising monthly walks.

Initially the walks had a break for lunch at local pubs. Then Covid closed pubs and imposed rules about meeting together, so picnic walks took place and these continue today.

To date there have been 180 Swalks with 3 members being awarded a certificate for completing 100 walks.

Local walks include Pagham Spit, Church Norton, Chichester Canal, 7 points, Medmerry, Chichester Marina, Dell Quay, The Witterings, Itchenor, Centurion Way. Slightly further afield to Nore woods (Bluebells), West Dean Woods (Wild Daffodils) and Emsworth. More recently we have introduced new walks to Prinsted and Nutbourne, West Dean and Bosham. The walks are supplemented with mince pies and mulled wine at Christmas and a cream tea in the summer.

Since 2009 we have had a total of 110 Swalkers, there are 36 on the current mailing list with an average attendance of 15 – new members are most welcome, please contact Bill Martin for more information.

In 2013 ‘Walks around Sidlesham’ was published. 1000 copies have been printed and it recently gained the status of JR Hartley’s ‘Fly Fishing’’ when a signed copy was found in a local charity shop! Other publications have followed Sidlesham (LSA) Heritage Trail (2015), All Aboard {Seley’s Railway Carriages 2015) and Walk the Selsey Tram Way (2022).

Published walks and trails can be downloaded from our website here.

CPRE Hedgerow Heroes Project

By Jane Reeve | Hedgerow Heroes Project

Hurrah, we have started the tree planting phase of the amazing CPRE Hedgerow Heroes project at Ham in Sidlesham, and we have smashed all our records with hundreds, and even over a thousand trees, planted in one day.

The Argus recently highlighted this fantastic work and the wider reach of the national planting scheme in this article.

The project started with a very cold, super windy, and sleeting day but I still had 11 super committed and enthusiastic volunteers come and plant the first hedge. It was tough going but a good range of cake worked to re-energise, and we managed to plant 640 trees that day.

Before Christmas, in the 5 sessions that we had tree planting, we managed to create 902 metres of new hedge made up of 4200 trees. The farmer has helped us enormously by rotavating the strips of ground to be planted which has made us now an efficient hedge creating machine.

We are going to carry on with this project for the next couple of months as we still have 5,000 trees left to plant, so come and please get involved.

Pond Power Project

By Jane Reeve | Pond Power Project

The Portsmouth Water funded Pond Power project has continued with vegetation removal at the four ponds over the last couple of months and we have made real progress.

At Church Lane pond, in Hunston, we have now exposed the front ditch that feeds the pond and removed some of the willow that had the potential to interfere with flow. As we have cut back some of the bramble, we have removed many old plastic tree guards that had surrounded some of the trees we planted during the FLOW project. They were getting fragile and broken and in many cases were lying flat on the ground and under the vegetation. We still have more work to do here but the Church Commissioners that own the pond have been in and removed a large dead elm tree that had fallen into the pond. I needed this taken out as it was becoming a route for bramble to invade the central part of the pond.

We gave Sheepwash pond a really good cut of the vegetation on the banks so that it now gets light in on the water and is much less shaded. It still has Azolla Fern on it, so we are very cautious and careful in and around the water.

Florence pond is looking loved now that we have talked the front and back of the pond, it is now full of water, and all the dead tree branches have been removed and relocated to a dead wood pile for amphibians.

Willow Glen is a large project, and we will continue to cut the vegetation on the far bank over the next couple of months. We also have hazel stakes and binders coming from West Dean Woods in the next week so there will be a couple of session creating a new fence line along the front of this pond. We are restricted here in the type of fencing can be used as the margin between the pavement and the drop to the water is so narrow, traditional fencing options are not an option! This will make this pond looked loved again, which is important, as otherwise these sites are overlooked and are at risk of becoming fly tipping destinations.

In the background to this physical work with brilliant volunteers, I am also working on management plans for these sites so that they can be entrusted into the care if parish councils and landowners. Thank you to everyone that has helped out at these sites, it is really rewarding work, please do get involved and come and learn more about these great little sites.

2025 Wildlife Survey Results Recap

By Nikki Timney | Find Wildlife From Home Survey

Throughout 2025, you spotted a total of 419 individual birds, butterflies, moths, mammals and other species. Play the video below for a summary of these survey highlights.

In November and December our survey received 6 wildlife records, including 105 individuals, bringing the total number of records submitted for this survey to 1,912!

View a selection of the fantastic photos and survey results received further below.

Survey Results for November and December

100 Starlings	1 Beautiful Plume Moth	1 Dunnock
1 Blackbird	1 Magpie	1 Woodpigeon

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.