GUPTON
FARM
Fresh
Water West
The present third generation of
tenants first of Lord Cawdor and now the National Trust, Terry and
Michael Watkins are retiring and the National Trust are taking the
farm in hand.
Both brothers are Volunteer
Coastguards,as were their fathers and grandfathers.
Since seventeen ninety the whole valley
has been farmed as traditional mixed arable farms.
During the war the cowsheds and dairy
were built by German Prisoners of War.
Until the 1960 s the present tenants
grandparents had twenty dairy cows Ayrshires, store cattle pigs sheep
and poultry with fodder crops, the water meadows were managed
traditionally flooded in the winter grazed in the spring hay crop
taken in the summer then grazed again until the land flooded. The
silt brought by the flooding fertilised the meadows, which were a
botanists paradise when dry and a four hundred acre overwintering
site for migratory birds, when wet.
Rabbits were an important
source of income, trapped and snared they were collected once a week
and taken to the Rabbit Factory on the Parade in Pembroke
This income ceased when Ronald Lockley,
Orielton sold rabbits infected with the fleas that carry myximatosis.
When the tenancy passed to Terry the
farm had to support two families and the dairy herd was increased to
two hundred head. , collected in churns from the milk stand on the
roadside,then some organic unpasteurised milk sold in in sachets and
finally a bulk tank collection.
When the dairy herd was sold due to
the collapse of the dairy market the herd was then 450 strong.
They negotiated with Tir Gofal to
manage the land to strict conditions
When that scheme ceased the National
Trust no longer maintained the drainage the Environment Agency
insisted on flooding and government subsidies were no longer
available because of the conditions imposed by these three bodies.
The valley supports badgers otters
marsh harriers lapwings egrets, most migratory overwintering duck
geese and other wildfowl.
They have never been disturbed, the
last wildfowl were shot in the fifties.
In the spring it hosts migratory song
birds and numerous raptors.
Plovers , lapwing nest there, almost
every where else in Pembrokeshire have been driven away as ground
nesters by free running dogs.
Here the Lapwings build their nests in
the poached margins of the water meadows using the tumps raised above
water level a very specific habitat.
Now the arable land is now stocked with
calves to rear for market and several hundred store cattle over
winter.
Why is the change of management
important
One property Gupton Farm and parts of
Castlemartin Corse are to be taken in hand and managed by the
Trust.
Freshwater West, is undeveloped and sought for
wildness and solitude.It is dangerous for bathing. The surfers and
recent films made there has led to intense visitor pressure.
The
beach and the sand dunes are of scientific interest one of the few
relatively intact calcareous water meadows.
The area was improved
by drainage by the Cawdors, the water levels managed for
agriculture.
For most of my life with the outfall to the beach
(recently removed)the area has contained seasonal dune slacks and
winter flooding meadows with a calcareous alkaline soil.
The listed outfall has not been
maintained and a decision was made to remove the tunnel, the
structure which kept the drainage to the storm beach open for more
than two hundred years, a beach which can vary in profile and height
by up to three meters after a spring tide and a storm.
The tunnel ran through the pebbles to
the sand so in a storm the pebbles were washed over the tunnel only
sand could be forced into the structure, that was then easily washed
out by the stream when the tide receded, Now the pebbles are forced
into the stone chamber, are too heavy for the stream to wash them out
this raises the water level further and provides a thirty meter block
to the passage of migratory fish,as the water trickles through the
pebbles and emerges over a large area instead of a free passage .
With dune stabilisation by the National Park the supply of wind
blown ground up shell fragments, has not replenished the
“machair”.The high rainfall leaches the lime from the sand which
becomes acid the water draining into the streams is alkaline, When
there are wind blown shells the top two or three centimetres are
alkaline, which when combined with close grazing produces a herb rich
grassland home to a multitude of flowering plants.
The dune
slacks and the watercourses are flooded with alkaline mineral rich
clear water, a haven for fish invertebrates insects with a
profusion of water plants.
The land was grazed when dry in
spring,in summer a hay crop was taken for winter feed after the
stock was taken off in the winter the land flooded, the silt
fertilised the meadows. The stock were not allowed to poach the
land.
Now high stock rate with store cattle in the winter, maize
cultivation in summer can produce high nitrogen run off and poaching
to bare soil.
The Corse to the east of the road now fenced off and
planted with permanent ley in my lifetime was closely grazed
herb rich sward, it must be returned to its natural climax
vegetation.
Reading a Consultants Report from 2007 the area has
been changed by drainage not being maintained and by run off from
upstream ploughing filling the drains with silt.
It is now an
offence under the European Waters Directive to allow further
degradation of historical waterways used by migratory fish for
spawning purposes
The steam has an annual run of elvers in and
mature eels out to sea. Lampreys are present (or were). The future
pressures on the land are critical, the desire by Surfers to set up
an International Surfing Centre, to quote their words”surfers will
not walk far, they need car parks at the top of the beach cafes
and camping.”
Pembrokeshire County Council recognises Global
Warming and predicts the destruction of the present road by rising
sea levels, one proposed solution is to close the road from the road
to Angle to Castlemartin and restrict vehicle access to householder
access.
The farm has to produce an economic return to pay for
Conservation, and to support local people.
The dune slacks and the
seasonal flooding historically have been a haven for waterfowl
of international importance.
At present there is no public
access, any public access with free running dogs will degrade
this as it has destroyed the sanctuary value of other
sites in Pembrokeshire.
These are some of the competing
priorities, the debate about future use is too important to be left
to Pembrokeshire Politics, this area is of international importance.
Why is the complete valley not a Ramsar Site?
