Saving an Historic Lawn: Conservation Progress Report Maurice Rotheroe
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Volume 9, Part 3, August 1995 SAVING AN HISTORIC LAWN: CONSERVATION PROGRESS REPORT MAURICE ROTHEROE Fern Cottage, Falcondale, Lampeter, Dyfed, U.K. Repairing historic buildings in a manner sensi- When architect Alwyn Jones explained the tive to conservation considerations is nothing new scale of the project to me and to Dr. Sue Byrne, to the National Trust and its architects. However, CCW Assistant Regional Officer, we were horri- the task of restoring the roof of Llanerchaeron fied. This was not just a matter of a couple ofmen Mansion, a 200-year-old Nash property in Dyfed, on the roof replacing slates, with carpenters Mid Wales, has thrown up some unique problems inside the loft mending joists. It was to be a for Trust staff. £600,000 contract lasting for ten months and Perhaps for the first time in the history of this involving 30 or more craftsmen engaged in the august organisation, their troubles are mainly wholesale removal and replacement of the roof macro-mycological! The tiny lawn, hugging two and its supporting structure. First, a massive sides of the house (Fig 1), supports a remarkably dome was to be constructed, covering the entire rich fungus flora which includes no fewer than roof of the main house and servants' wing above four British Red Data List species and seven chimney height, supported by steel towers and European red list taxa. buttressed by outliers pegged into the ground at The unkempt, mossy sward is considered to be an angle. Between these, conventional builders' so important mycologicallythat, as BMS Deputy scaffolding was to be erected. Conservation Officer and encouraged by BMS If Alwyn Jones and the contractors had pro- President Dr. Juliet Frankland, I am currently ceeded along standard building practice lines, the negotiating with the Trust and with the Country- steel towers would have been embedded in huge side Council for Wales (CCW) to have it officially concrete blockssunk into the ground and the lawn 'notified' as a Site of Special Scientific Interest. would have turned into the barren rubble of a CCW's Director of Conservation, Dr. Ian Bonner, building site. But Philip James would not hear of is well disposed to the idea and Philip James, the this. By now, he and the Trust had cometo regard Trust's Regional Land Agent, is sympathetic and the operation as not one conservation project, but anxious to conserve the lawn. BMS Council have two. The preservation ofthe environment, includ- agreed to allocate funds for 'interpretive' material ing the lawn and its fungi, was as important as the such as leaflets and signs explaining to visitors preservation of the fine architecture of the Nash why the lawn is so speciaL Here is conservation house, he said. Conservation did not stop at the history in the making for all three organisations. edge of the building. Given such all-round benevolence, the future It was agreed that instead of concrete blocks, a management and conservation of the lawn at series of wooden sleepers would be laid down to Llanerchaeron appeared to be in safe hands. spread the load and reduce the area of lawn Negotiations over SSSI status were scarcely a few affected. Once the scaffolding was up, the lawn months' advanced, however, when an unexpected would be declared a 'no-go zone' for contract threat emerged in the shape of a windfall for the workers. It would be fenced off and neither men National Trust. A well-wisher left a substantial nor vehicles would be allowed across it. The crane legacy which made it possible for the Trust, with to install the roof section would operate only from grant aid from the Welsh historic buildings the driveway at the front of the house and there watchdog, Cadw, to replace completely the dilapi- would be only one access point on to the scaffold- dated slated roof and its timbers riddled with dry ing, from the drive on the front corner of the rot - the one fungus National Trust staff know building. At first it was suggested that the lawn only too well! should be completely covered to avoid damage • Volume 9, Part 3, August 1995 from falling slates, plaster and other builders' refreshing restraint, they left them in situ - and materials. But this was ruled out when it was telephoned me. realised that ten months' exclusion of light and When I arrived the next day I too was aston- air might do untold damage to fungal mycelium ished. I was also delighted to be able to make my and the grasses. Instead, a sort of safety net first and only sighting ofMicroglossum oliuaceum. would be fitted above ground level to catch any This member ofthe Geoglossaceae appears on the debris. British Red Data List as Vulnerable and on the All these measures would, of course, increase Red Data List of Endangered European Fungi the cost ofthe restoration project and the Trust is (lng, 1993) in Group B, i.e. 'widespread losses, to be applauded for its enlightened attitude and evidence of steady decline, some national extinc- its willingness to meet the cost of conservation in tions, medium-level concern'. It is, in fact, ex- the wider sphere. Perhaps the most significant tremely rare in European terms and appears on no (and unusual) concession the Trust was prepared fewer than nine out of the 11 red lists so far to make - and to pay for - was for a clause to be published in Europe (Arnolds & de Vries, 1993). written into the contract requiring the work force Also collected on that first occasionwere Clauaria to be employed for an extra day before the scheme incarnata, C.uermicularis and C.zollingeri(Fig 3) began. This was to give Dr. Byrne and me the - the latter being another Vulnerable species on opportunity to lay on a 'mycological teach-in' for the British list and rated in Group C, 'lower-level the workers and to briefthem onthe importance of concern', in Europe. the lawn and the need to avoid disturbance to it as Fig 3 on the back cover of this issue shows two much as possible. By explaining why their normal other Hygrocybe species recorded at the site; H. working practices were being modified, we hoped splendidissima and H. punicea,the latter being a that they would co-operate more fully in trying to European red list species. safeguard the fungi and the lawn. Between 1992 and 1994 I conducted an un- Work on the project should start in September. official survey of the lawn and recorded a total of None of us is at all confident that such a fragile more than 50 macrofungal taxa. My list included habitat will survive even the trampling and 20 species and two varieties in the genus Hygro- physical disruption of the turf during the initial cybe (including H. persistens, Fig 4), five members erection of the scaffolding -'- to say nothing of the of the Entolomataceae, four clavarioid fungi and longer-term threat of input of building materials one in the Geoglossaceae. Other Hygrocybe spe- such as lime plaster from the sides of the house, cies on the European red list were H. intermedia, which could fundamentally change the nutrient H. ouina and H. unguinosa. My records also status of the soil and eliminate many fungal included the rare H. irrigata, which perhaps species. The basic conservation management should be on the British red list. In the herbarium tenet 'maintain the status quo' will clearly be at Kew there are only four records of this taxon, difficult to sustain here for the next ten months. with none since 1952. In 1993 and 1994 Porpo- What is the status quo at Llanerchaeron? What loma (formerly Hygrocybe) metapoida, on both are the components of the lawn's rich and diverse British and European red lists, fruited on the mycoflora? In the autumn of 1992 a group of local lawn. Incidentally, three orchid species were also naturalists held a fungus foray at Llanerchaeron. recorded, together with some other uncommon As is the wont offorayers, they went around most plants such as the ivy-leaved bellflower (Wahlen- of the estate like an army of vacuum cleaners, bergia hederacea L.). picking and carrying off anything they found The orchids, together with the four fungal which remotely resembled a fungus. On the lawn, groups mentioned, are characteristic ofold, undis- however, they paused, astonished at the array of turbed lowland grasslands - the unimproved Hygrocybe species which confronted them - domi- mesic pastures which were oncea commonfeature nated by the elegant H. calyptraeformis (Fig 2), of the British landscape but which have now which is included as Vulnerable on the pro- almost disappeared as a habitat here and in many visional Red Data list ofBritish Fungi (lng, 1992). parts of Europe because of modern agricultural They also encountered a number of what were to practices. them rather bizarre fructifications. With rare and The lawn at Llanerchaeron is 200 years old and • Volume 9, Part 3, August 1995 classification as a rare survival of semi-natural ancient grassland. Because it is so well repre- sented by members of the Hygrophoraceae, Ento- lomataceae and Clavariaceae it can be legiti- mately regarded as belonging to the so-called category of 'Hygrophorus grasslands'. Arnolds (1988) describes these as being in urgent need of protection, since, he maintains, the development of a rich and characteristic grassland mycoflora takes at least 50 years. It was with these considerations in mind that Dr. Frankland and I began to investigate the possibility ofobtaining SSSI status for the Llaner- Fig 1 Local naturalists on a fungus foray on the lawn at chaeron lawn.