Miserden,Whiteway,The Camp Sudgrove & Wishanger Summer 2018 Butterfly Conservation is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. It’s amazing to think that we have been helping to protect and enhance the UKs butterflies, moths and their habitats all this time. It started off in a very small way, as so often happens, with a few like-minded individuals keen to help the lepidoptera of this country. It has now grown to over 33,000 members countrywide and has 31 branches scattered throughout the UK. It recently held the 8th Interna- tional Symposium in Southampton earlier this month, so we are also linked with enthusiasts from all over the world. Sadly, all this effort has not led to a great increase in butterflies and moths – rather the reverse. However, a lot of this is due to loss of habitat due to agricultural changes in management, roads, houses, changes to woodland management, climatic change and probably a few things that we still don’t understand. Where effort had been made to protect some of the rarer species a turn-around has been seen in their fortunes but the fate of some of our more common butterflies is now becoming a concern. The Small Tortoiseshell, an iconic visitor to gar- dens dropped to ninth position in the Gloucestershire Big Butterfly Count last year, with the Peacock coming eighth. However, the Red Admiral had a good year and came sec- ond, following the Gatekeeper. Some of you may have visited the Butterfly Conservation Reserve – Rough Bank – which is very near to The Camp on Calf Way. The unimproved grassland on the Bank has been known for many years as an excellent site. So far, a total of over 1300 species have been recorded. Thirty-three butterfly species and about 630 moths have been recorded. It is a very rich biodiverse site. It is grazed by the National Trust herd of cattle in the autumn/winter, whereas the Myers fields (Little and Great) could have Belted Gal- loways on them at any time of the year. It was the very first site for the reintro- Chalk Hill Blue duction of the Large Blue but unfortu- nately this failed due to lack of synchronicity of the wild thyme and the butterfly. However, there are six other species of blue butterfly – Common, Chalk Hill, Holly, Adonis, Small Blue and the Brown Argus which also belongs to the same family. A regular transect (same route walked every week from beginning of April to end of September) is carried out by our Butterfly Record- er, Chris Wiltshire. The branch volunteers have done much work to reduce the scrub on 1 the site and to reclaim the grassland (a requirement of the HLS grant) and more recently some of the big trees along the bottom of the Rough Bank slope have also been removed. More will be removed next winter and some of the wood is being used to slow up the flow of water into the Slad Valley as part of the Sustainable Urban Drainage System project. We welcome visitors to the site at any time but would just ask that the gates are kept shut at all times. The other site with which Butterfly Conservation is involved is Bull Banks on the Miserden Estate, by kind permission of the Wills family. Students from the Royal Agri- cultural University have been helping with scrub removal, bracken control and other experimental work. This is also monitored throughout the spring and summer by a regular transect walker. Cattle are present on the site during some of the winter and various people have been involved in checking them while they are on site. The Cots- wolds Voluntary Wardens have helped with work on both sites. This has a permissive path through the estate. Miserden Bull Banks and Rough Bank are both included in the Back from the Brink (BftB) project (https://naturebftb.co.uk/the- projects/limestones-living-legacies/) which started last summer and runs Small Blue for four years, along with other sites in the Cotswolds. Various events are being organised, mostly free, in connection with land manage- ment, butterfly and larvae identification, moth nights, beetle and adder searches to name a few. If you are interested in potentially joining any of these activities, please contact Jen Gilbert, the BftB Engagement Of- ficer – [email protected] or on 07483039321. News from Miserden School It’s an exciting time at Miserden C of E Primary School. The school has restarted its pre-school on a Monday and Tuesday, and Mrs Murphy has joined the staff to sup- port this. The school has also swapped rooms around to bring make leading Class 1 and pre-school more practical for Mrs Bartlett, the Class 1 lead teacher, and foster the family feel of the school. This move was a lot of extra work for the staff team, who cheerfully shifted tables and bookcases around the school premises, to create the wonderful new environment. Outside the classroom, the school is thrilled to have been generously given the use of field adjacent to the school for a playing field, by the Miserden Estate. A pitch is being prepared on the field, to the excitement of the children. A small school thrives on the support and en- gagement of parents and governors, and it is won- derful that new faces are giving their time and expertise to Miserden, as well as the ongoing, stead- fast commitment from established parents and gov- ernors. If you too would like to support our local school in any way, please contact the school office on [email protected]. 2 BRINGING THE ROOF DOWN! It was a beautiful day, a Bank Holiday as well; one of the hottest early May Bank Holidays for years. Yet six volunteers gave up their Bank Holiday morning to throw themselves wholeheartedly into ripping down the existing false ceiling, the functional lighting and the foam insulation at Miserden Village Hall. Fair to say that the glorious sunshine was sacrificed for showerings of cork tiles, itchy foam and suffocating dust! But what a difference a few hours of sweat and tears made; the main hall was transformed, and this was just the beginning. By the time that you are reading this, the major works to the Village Hall should be almost complete. Let us hope this is the case as the annu- al Folk Camp moves in over the weekend beginning 8th. June. So at last, after what feels like a very long time, your Village Hall is undergoing a remarkable facelift which will present it as an even more attractive venue. We are really excited about the planned alterations, and we are looking forward to a significant uplift in the use of the facility both by hirers and for locally promoted events. The exposed vaulted ceiling gives the main hall a more open and spacious feel. New lighting will provide a fresh and exciting atmosphere for various situations; freshly painted areas and full connection to the Miserden Estate biomass heating scheme will ensure an amenity fit for any and every occasion. Generous funding support from the National Lottery, Miserden Parish Council and Severn Wye Energy has enabled the Hall Committee to undertake the planned works in full. Plenty of fresh ideas have been pursued by the Hall Committee in recent months which are designed to not only enhance the Hall’s public face, but also to improve the day to day efficiency of administering and running the facility. The ambition is to estab- lish Miserden Village Hall as an excellent asset for the local community first and fore- most, and also as a desirable place for a wider catchment to use and to enjoy. The Hall Committee is still keen to recruit new members, so if you are interested then please contact Mark Round, Chair, on 01285 821297 or myself on 01285 821829. Alan Lord, Treasurer 3 This is the second and final part of an article about the building of a dream home worthy of Grand Designs in Whiteway. Maurica - Part II Richard Sales writes: One of the many advantages of living on top of the Cotswolds is that stone is never far away. As we dug out the site of the old house to make the pond, we were fortunate in hitting lovely clean stone that we then quarried and rolled in layers to make a perfect level site for the foundations of the house to come. All through this project we made great efforts to reuse all materials on site, partly to save money but also to reduce waste. Rather than conventional strip foundations we used an insulated raft foundation system called Isoquick, made from dense polystyrene foam modules that are prefabricat- ed and running right underneath the slab and up the sides. This is an important ele- ment in the design of the house by providing thermal mass to regulate the temperature, keeping it cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter. Bill Morgan (also from White- way) and his band of merry men worked gallantly through a cold and miserable January installing all the steel reinforcing for the concrete slab. They certainly earned their fish and chips after a frenetic morning when the concrete was delivered and poured! In comparison to the groundworks and foundations, which used local talent, the superstructure was a northern affair. For speed of erection, we chose a timber frame construction made off-site in a factory in Lancashire. The walls were constructed using a closed panel system, with everything built in, including the insulation.