SWLA Massingham Heath Project
The SWLA is delighted to announce a major new project which will run for a full year from May 2025. The Massingham Heath Project will see over thirty of our member artists follow the seasons and changing flora, fauna and landscape of an exciting rewilding project in West Norfolk.
Landowner Oliver Birkbeck inherited the estate less than ten years ago, and set to work restoring former heathland and establishing species rich meadows on adjacent marginal land as part of his vision to help create a nature corridor on the farm. Starting with an initial 400 acres but now more than double that acreage, his initiative has seen amazing results in just eight years, with a remarkable number of plants returning from the dormant seedbank just waiting to germinate.
SWLA Friend and Project Committee Member Tim Baldwin takes up the story.
Back in 2018 when I volunteered to take on the task of running the Friends’ membership list, I had no idea where it would lead. Whatever I might have thought, the possibility that six years later the Society would be planning a project on the doorstep of my newly adopted home village was not among them! I had moved to Great Massingham in rural West Norfolk earlier that same year and soon became aware of an interesting development on the edge of the village. An open landscape of fields, interspersed with patches of bracken, gorse and belts of pine had been transformed into a sea of poppies.
This was the start of an ambitious rewilding scheme spread over 500 acres of the Little Massingham Estate. Former poor arable land, pressed into reluctant food production during World War 2, was being allowed to return to its former grassy heath. The poppies were not sown, as many thought, but a natural occurrence from the seed bank when the land had been left fallow after its final cropping. By this time, I had become involved in managing a small parish owned “Biodiversity Project” and through this met the landowner of the estate, Olly Birkbeck. We quickly formed an alliance to promote an awareness of biodiversity locally, working in close parallel but at very different scales. Olly was generous in allowing me free access to the developing heath, which I came to know well, and he was pleased to receive my feedback and observations as I did so.
Fast forward to 2022 and at that year’s post-Covid Natural Eye exhibition, Member artist Carry Akroyd asked if I knew Olly Birkbeck and of the rewilding scheme. She had met Olly through her work for the Oldie magazine and was keen to visit the area which she did the following year. In the meantime, SWLA president Harriet Mead had also become aware of the heath and visited and so between Carry and herself the possibility of an SWLA project began to emerge.
SWLA President Harriet Mead continues:
I first visited Massingham Heath on a damp November day in 2022 and despite the fact that it was turning to winter, the masses of spent seed heads were evidence of the wonders that spring and summer would bring. A habitat rich in native plants will provide food and cover for a myriad of wildlife, so it was clear that this place would be full of inspiration for SWLA artists. Tim introduced me to landowner Olly Birkbeck and the idea of inviting our member artists to spend time here to celebrate the heath and be inspired by the creatures and plants that make it their home, soon developed into a more ambitious project to follow the changing landscape through a full year.
Olly has offered the SWLA carte blanche to visit the heath and is hosting the launch residency in May at his beautiful barn and glamping site.
The artists will use their own unique approaches to document the heath and capture some of the key moments of the year. The continuity of multiple visits to a relatively small project area will bring into focus the importance of these spaces within the productive agricultural land and I hope inspire other landowners to follow Olly’s lead. The project will culminate in a book, and there will be local exhibitions, talks and workshops during and after the project.
James Holden, SWLA Friend and supporter, has pledged a considerable donation in both time and money to ensure that a beautiful full colour book can be produced. James and his wife Laura visited the site last summer and share our excitement about the project. James has his own design studio and will be providing his expertise and that of his team to make the book a reality. He is supporting the book in memory of his late father, Bryan who was a founding member of the ‘BB’ Society (dedicated to the memory of the artist and countryside writer Denys Watkins-Pitchford) and had a profound love for the English countryside. The SWLA is extremely grateful for his generosity.
Our hope for this project means that we will need to raise further funds to cover some of the basic costs for the artists (travel and meals) and extra funds for the workshops, community projects plus possible hire fees for gallery spaces.
If you want to support the project you can donate from this page.
