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A is for Awards
We’re delighted to launch our monthly blog to celebrate our centenary with the very first letter — A!
And what better way to begin championing our countryside than by celebrating our 2025 CPRE Gloucestershire Award recipients — recognised for their outstanding contributions to protecting and promoting our countryside and its communities.
Read our opening centenary blog post, written by our President, Madeleine Bunting, below.
As President of CPRE Gloucestershire, one of my favourite tasks is presenting the Awards every autumn.
Over the course of a couple of hours, I get to hear about some wonderful and inspiring projects and meet the community leaders and volunteers who have got them off the ground. It’s an afternoon of good news. Imagine my delight this year when I presented Awards to several projects I know well.
Sapperton Wilder is a fascinating land restoration scheme covering 400 acres of former arable Cotswolds. Dr Jonathan Milner, the owner, has taken on the challenge of using his land as an experimental test bed to work out how to restore soil health, improve biodiversity on exhausted Cotswold brash soils and how to make an income in the process. About eighteen months ago I met the then project manager Charlie Nash and the ecology officer Chenie Prudhomme and interviewed them on the wide range of their work from sowing herbal lays, planting trees and widening verges; they were monitoring the impact of everything they did to ensure there is an evidence base. To get a better sense of this meticulous work, I signed up with Chenie to do a day of digging for worms. The annual worm count is an excellent way of assessing soil health.
On the February day I turned up, it was raining steadily with a bitter wind but I had dressed in multiple layers and waterproofs and thought I would manage. There was one other volunteer. The three of us sat in the middle of the field, bent over the clods of earth we had dug up and crumbled the soil through our fingers as if we were making pastry; we wanted the exact right type of worm and every time we found one, Chenie popped it in a test tube to be sent off the lab. It was hard work, but the three of us did not stop chatting and often laughing as we recounted life histories, and Chenie kept our spirits up with wonderful anecdotes from her career monitoring catches on fishing boats in the North Atlantic. At the end of a few hours, I don’t think I have ever been so cold, but so exhilarated by the enthusiasm and commitment of my fellow diggers. I was delighted to award Chenie with the CPRE Gloucestershire plaque for her work.
Next up at the CPRE Gloucestershire Awards was another project close to my heart. From my desk, I can see the outline of the Painswick Beacon across the Painswick valley and particularly in winter, I like to head up there to catch the winter sunshine which often doesn’t dwell on the valley slopes. I’ve admired the complex challenge of managing the place which manages to combine being a SSSI (Site of Special Scientific Interest), golf course, popular beauty spot and an English Heritage site. Painswick Beacon Conservation Group is run by a number of deeply committed volunteers, and they have lent their expertise to our campaign to Save Juniper Hill Field (a 20 acre field of calcareous grassland adjoining the SSSI of Frith Wood running between the Slad and Painswick valleys). In a bid to increase my knowledge of the flora of Cotswold grassland I joined other volunteers to help survey wild flowers. It was a balmy June day very unlike my experience at Sapperton, but I was back on my knees for several hours as we crawled over the ground to discuss and try to identify flowers under the expert instruction of the ecologist Kathy Meakin. Once again, there was much laughter and conversation as we discussed Yellow Rattle and fragrant pyramidal orchids. Never had staring at the ground for so long been so satisfying.
Finally, I was delighted that Brimscombe Mill received another Award. I’m a regular at the Long Table, a terrific community project, where you can have a delicious meal, attend a great talk or browse second hand furniture and clothing. Like many others, I’ve followed the extraordinary and inspiring story of how they succeeded in raising the funding to buy their site and secure their future as a hub of community activities.
Congratulations to all three and I look forward to following their progress!
Our President, Madeleine Bunting, shares her reflections on three of this year’s seven CPRE Gloucestershire Award recipients. Click below to read about all the inspiring projects recognised in 2025.
