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. Although our suggestion has been Llanerchaeron Mansion, the 200-year-old National Trust well received, the regulations governing notifi- property in the Aeron Valley, near Aberaeron, Dyfed. (Photo: cation ofSSSIs are nowmuch more stringent than John Savidge). they were 20 years ago when Knavenhill Wood in Warwickshire was designated as an SSSI solely for the past 50years it has been in a time warp. Its on the strength of its fungus flora (the only 'minimal' management has consisted of little example I know of this happening). The ball is more than regular but light mowing, with the now firmly in the BMS court and we have to grass cuttings removed. It has suffered no 'im- produce written evidence from a number of provement' in the form of fertiliser, herbicide, recognised 'authorities' and reliable sources to moss-killer, pesticide or fungicide, no top dressing substantiate the claim that the lawn has high or other modern lawn treatment. Being only two conservation value. We also have to provide miles from the Cardigan Bay coast, it enjoys a evidence showing comparisons which indicate the climate conduciveto plant growth, with relatively relative richness of the lawn with regard to other high rainfall, little or no air pollution and mild grassland locations. This is far from easy, since winters (although unexpected early and late most published records of mycofloras relate to frosts do sometimes occur in the valley of the woodland and many records, such as those in the River Aeron). BMS database, are fragmentary and not site Although man's influence has been very strong orientated. here, this postage-stamp lawn, covering less than a quarter of an acre, appears to qualify for

Fig 3 Clavaria zollingeri, which fruits in three discrete zones on the lawn at Llanerchaeron; one of four British Red Data List species recorded there. (Photo: Maurice Rotheroe). Fig 2 The elegant Hygrocybe calyptraeformis, Such usable data as has emerged refers to very which used to be common on estate grasslands but is now regarded as 'vulnerable', fruiting at Llaner- much larger areas of grassland than the Llaner- chaeron. (Photo: John Savidge) . chaeron lawn. Records combined from all the • Volume 9, Part 3, August 1995

Fig 4 Hygrocybe persistens (== H. langei of the New Check List), which regularly fruits on the lawn at Llanerchaeron. (Photo: John Savidge, at Ynyslas). grasslands on sand dunes in Wales, for example, which will encourage others to identify and show totals of 27 Hygrocybe species, 23 Nolanea/ survey traditional, unimproved lawns and seek Leptonia species, six clavarioid species and five their protection. members of the Geoglossaceae. Dr. Jack Marriott Meanwile we await with apprehension the (pers. comm.) kindly furnished records gathered outcome of the reroofing work on Llanerchaeron since 1984fromThe Patches, a 500-year-oldareaof Mansion, in the fervent anticipation that there grassland in the Forest of Dean covering 3.7 acres will be something left worth conserving on the (1,500squaremetres). His datawere: Hygrocybe 32 lawn at the end of the contract. species and one variety; Entoloma 17; clavarioid fungi 3; and no Geoglossaceae. I am grateful for References records supplied by MargaretHolden (pers. comm.) Arnolds, E. (1988) The changing macromycete flora relating to Rothamsted Manor lawns. Her species in the Netherlands. Transactions of the British Mycological Society 90: 391-406. totals (in the same order as above)were: 13:3:3:2.It Arnolds, E. & de Vries, B. (1993) Conservation of is interestingto note from Dennis (1995)thatthere fungi in Europe, in'Fungi ofEurope: Investigation, are more wax caps ontheLlanerchaeronlawn then recording and conservation', 211-230, Eds. D.N. have been recorded in one of the most intensively Pegler, L. Boddy & P.R. Kirk. Royal Botanic studied areas in Britain, ie the vice-county ofEast Gardens, Kew. Dennis, R.W.G. (1995) Fungi ofSouth East England. Sussex (19 spp.). The quest for lists of the four Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. characteristic groups from other grassland lng, B. (1992) A provisional Red Data List of British locations in Britain continues. fungi. Mycologist 6: 124-128. The experience gained in treading through the Ing, B. (1993) Towards a Red Data List of En- dangered European Macrofungi, in 'Fungi of paperwork towards SSSI notification is clearly Europe: Investigation, recording and conservation', going to be invaluable. If we are successful, then 231-237, Eds. D.N. Pegler, 1. Boddy & P.R. Kirk. perhaps this will become a motivating precedent Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. •