Nov 2024: Stonehenge Landscape grassland reversion project

Double win for nature and archaeology  

The Stonehenge Projects team is nearing the completion of a long-running and ambitious project to make more space for nature, protect the archaeology of the Stonehenge Landscape, and to improve opportunities for people to explore this special place.   

The UK has lost over 80% of its chalk grassland since the 1940s. 

Since 2022, over 255 hectares of arable land will have been reverted to species rich chalk grassland, bringing the total that has been reverted to grassland in the past couple of decades to 769 hectares*. 

When the work is complete, it will be the first time in almost a century of National Trust ownership, that all fields in the Stonehenge Landscape will be under pasture.  Much of the seed used for the reversion was harvested from Salisbury Plain.  Wildflowers synonymous with chalkland biodiversity, including devil’s-bit scabious, cowslip and horseshoe vetch will help support endangered butterflies such as the marsh fritillary, Duke of Burgundy and Adonis blue. 

This land will never again be ploughed, protecting a wealth of archaeological sites that sit within the landscape. 

Thanks to this work, nine Scheduled Monuments which were previously on Historic England’s ‘Heritage at Risk’ register have been removed, and more will follow when the next register is published. 

The National Trust team in the Stonehenge Landscape, is also working with organisations in the Wiltshire Chalk Partnership to change the fortunes of the rare species that rely on these unique and precious chalk habitats across Wiltshire by creating and improving nature corridors through reseeding and wildflower plug planting.  

Project Manager, Abby George, said: “This is a long-held ambition and it has taken years of work to create this important habitat on such a big scale. It feels like we’re coming to the end but in many ways it’s just the beginning as the fruits of this work will begin to provide significant additional habitat resilience and connectivity for the species that rely on these grasslands.  

“Today as we walk across the Stonehenge Landscape, it’s amazing to think that only recently most of these were arable fields. Now this place begins its journey towards a place where people will be able to experience a landscape much closer to the one Neolithic and Bronze Age communities would have recognised thousands of years ago.” 

*NT total ownership in the Stonehenge Landscape is 840ha. Of this, the remaining 44ha of the total ownership consists of woodland, buildings and tracks.