Sophie Nash is Project Officer for the Westonbirt Project. She organises the logistics of the project, working with architects and project managers for various elements to deliver the works.

Part of the new road with stone parking bays taking shape.

Between the stone parking bays we will be informally planting trees in the soil area that you can see in the photograph.

The road to the new coach park is looking very neat and is ready for final finishes.

This is one of the soakaways for the car and coach park, when the grass and wildflowers grow it will merge in with the surrounding area.

This is the stone road for the additional parking to the south of the main car parking area.

The timber curved kerb for the additional car parking - visitors using this area will park on grass on busy days.

For more details about the Westonbirt Project, visit www.westonbirtproject.co.uk

Sophie Nash is Project Officer for the Westonbirt Project. She organises the logistics of the project, working with architects and project managers for various elements to deliver the works.

We’ve moved on a lot since the last blog. The car park is taking shape and is more recognisable to those who don’t know the plans inside out.

This aerial view was taken from a hot air balloon on 20 April and gives an overview of progress and the scale of the works taking place.

Once the Welcome Building is complete and we start using this car park next year, you will come down the entrance road and turn left into the new car park.

Now that excavation has taken place and the roads and car parking areas are at the right base level, we are now adding base stone layers and kerb edging.

The kerbs are important in defining the roads in the car park and the car parking bays themselves.

The coach park and part of the car park are within a water source protection zone. This means that we have to intercept the oil from vehicles to prevent it from entering the water source. The image above shows the membrane and pipes which form part of this ‘formal’ drainage.

A new soakaway has been created at the end of the drainage run. Once the water has been collected by the membrane and the pipes, it will be filtered to remove any oil, before draining safely into the soakaway.

For more details about the Westonbirt Project, visit www.westonbirtproject.co.uk

Sophie Nash is Project Officer for the Westonbirt Project. She organises the logistics of the project, working with architects and project managers for various elements to deliver the works.

Drainage for the new coach park and car park is now in place, including an oil interceptor for drainage within the water source protection zone. This will catch oil and silt from vehicles which drive and park in the finished coach and car parks.

A stone base layer has been laid down on the coach park access road and parts of the main car park, ready for the next stage of surfacing.

In the main car park itself, you may have spotted ‘T’ shaped markers pushed into the soil. These are setting out points for the roads, parking bays and other key features of the car park.

In this area, the surface is now further along in its preparation and levelled out – much closer to how the land will lie once the construction is complete.

The cold weather has been helping things along – saturated soil firms up in the icy weather, and although it makes for a rather chilly working environment, it is much easier going than puddles and mud.

You may also have noticed the new barrier that we’ve put in place, much nearer to the main road than the previous one. This is to let staff in before we open each morning, and metal estate fencing will be put in place after Easter to link to this and mirror that already in place on the opposite side of the entrance road.

For more details about the Westonbirt Project, visit www.westonbirtproject.co.uk

Sophie Nash is Project Officer for the Westonbirt Project. She organises the logistics of the project, working with architects and project managers for various elements to deliver the works.

You may have seen work starting on the car park as you drive into the arboretum. But what you wouldn’t have been able to see, screened by an existing Cypress hedge, is the work on the brand new coach park, which is much further advanced.

The coach park is formed by using a digger and a roller (image above shows work taking place on 22 February). The digger scrapes the top soil away to reveal the limestone just below the surface – we were fortunate that this limestone was so close to the surface as on many construction sites stone is imported from quarries to create a foundation layer. The fact that the limestone at Westonbirt is so close to the surface meant that we were able to use a roller to compact it and create the hard initial layer.

The image above (4 March) shows the surface compacted, ready for drainage and surfacing. The drainage will protect the local water source by using an oil interceptor.

For more details about the Westonbirt Project, visit www.westonbirtproject.co.uk

Sophie Nash is Project Officer for the Westonbirt Project. She organises the logistics of the project, working with architects and project managers for various elements to deliver the works.

As soon as we received the Heritage Lottery Fund decision, back in November, we started to plan the tender for the interpretation within the Welcome Building.

This week we will be selecting a design company to help us to deliver this key piece of work.

Before making our decision Ben Oliver, Learning & Participation Manager and I took a trip around the country looking at what others had done, mistakes they had learned from and great ideas we could borrow!

Our first trip took us north to Lancashire to see a new build, back down to Birmingham to an Arts and Craft house and out Warwickshire to a closed castle. Visiting both locations really helped us to be clear about the use of interactives both hi and low tech and our writing style.

Our second trip out took us across the country to Hampshire, via Forest Research in Farnham to drop off some soil samples, and back out to Buckinghamshire.

Our first stop was an exhibition about Captain Oates. Although the exhibition contained interesting information, I learnt I have a hidden skill as I happily carried an old potato on my feet around the room, mimicking how a penguin carries an egg!

The final stop of the day was Roald Dahl’s writing hut. It was really interesting to see how we could cater for a wide age range from toddlers to adults within the same space by considering height, peepholes and positioning of computer screens.

I’ll update the blog later in the Spring with information on the selected company and our plans for the interpretation in and around the Welcome Building.

For more details about the Westonbirt Project, visit www.westonbirtproject.co.uk

Sophie Nash is Project Officer for the Westonbirt Project. She organises the logistics of the project, working with architects and project managers for various elements to deliver the works.

Now that the car park is underway my attention has now shifted to the delivery of the new Welcome Building.

We’ve been working alongside our architects, Glenn Howells, and key members of the Westonbirt team including visitor services, the friends membership team and the learning team amongst others.

We are currently revisiting the internal layout of the building, checking that the building works in terms of ticketing, toilets and interpretation, balancing the requirements for each of these functions to ensure it works for us as much as possible.

Storage is always in short supply so we’ve tried to create enough space to store the current seasonal guide and space for a mop and bucket amongst other necessary items.

We’ve also created space for mobility scooters so those who want to hire a scooter can collect them from the new Welcome Building.

Over the next few weeks leading up to issuing the tender we will be deciding on fixtures and fittings including plug sockets and lighting.

For more details about the Westonbirt Project, visit www.westonbirtproject.co.uk

Sophie Nash is Project Officer for the Westonbirt Project. She organises the logistics of the project, working with architects and project managers for various elements to deliver the works.

With work on the new car park about to begin at the arboretum, I thought I should explain what I have been up to for the last few months leading up to this exciting moment! 

Although car parks perhaps aren’t most people’s idea of an interesting conversation topic, I’ve found an appreciation for a well designed attractive car park!

Ensuring our new car park looks lovely and works well will ensure all visitors have a better arrival and welcome which matches our ‘National’ status.

Along with searching for bright yellow women’s hi-vis jacket and breaking in my new steel toe cap welly boots, I’ve been searching the internet for the finishing details for the car park.

Searching for an attractive FSC approved timber, energy efficient lighting bollard was surprisingly difficult.

After many hours of internet trawling and discussions about light fitting ratings, I finally found a reasonably priced one made from Oak with an LED light fitting.

It’s a small but important detail and, knowing that we’d need more than 100 of them to be installed in the new car park and around other parts of the site, we wanted to make sure we selected an attractive but ‘Westonbirt’ suitable light.

Along with the new lighting bollards I’ve also been researching car park barriers. We will be installing two new barriers, one much closer to the A433 junction and one past the new car park by the plant centre. Both will be installed in late spring.

I will be updating the blog during the next 18 months, keeping you all up-to-date with what’s happening here and providing some behind the scenes updates.

For more details about the Westonbirt Project, visit www.westonbirtproject.co.uk

Back in June Matt Parratt from Forest Research and a team of volunteers completed the first stage of a comprehensive survey of the vegetation communities and plant species of the Downs.

John Taylor getting to grips with grasses in the horse field

From the data gathered we were able to show that the vegetation communities vary across the site and are closely associated with topography.

Harebell, Campanula rotundifolia

The area along the middle of the slope in the grazed fields had the greatest species richness and is a good example of the calcareous grassland typical of the Cotswold escarpment.

Dwarf thistle, cirsium acuale

This habitat has suffered a dramatic reduction in quantity and quality in the last 50 years and was a priority habitat under the former UK Biodiversity Action Plan (BAP).

Betony, Betonica officinalis

In contrast the flatter areas at the top and bottom of the slope were slightly less species rich and more in keeping with lowland meadows, another former UK BAP habitat.

Wooly thistle flower, Cirsium eriophorum

The area of the current car-park which will be restored had the lowest species diversity – just eight species were present!

Nine species were new records for the site, including two diminutive species which are easily over-looked: Spring sedge (Carex caryophyllea), and Fern grass (Catapodium rigidum). 

Marking the position of Wooly thistle using GPS

Spring sedge is a classic species of calcareous grassland, as is Crested hair-grass (Koeleria macrantha), another of the new records for the site.

Given the seasonal nature of plants it is important to re-survey sites at different times of year to capture a true picture of the vegetation present.

Phase two of the vegetation surveys was carried out over three days between 30 July and 1 August 2012. Apart from a few light showers on the 31 July, the weather was a lot more encouraging than the downpours we had for the first survey.

Searching out Catapodium and Vulpias

A total of 191 species were recorded during the June survey, approximately 6.5% of the total UK flora – an impressive number for a relatively small area.

The August survey added a further 46 species to the list for the Downs, a total of 237 species.

Additions included Meadow oat-grass (Avenula pratensis), Yellow oat-grass (Trisetum flavescens), Harebell (Campanula rotundifolia) and Spiked sedge (Carex spicata) on the grazed area.

Two unexpected species were Horse-radish (Armoracia rusticana), and Great burnet saxifrage (Pimpinella major) which were found growing in the longer grass surrounding the concert area.

Tim Trask looking for Tisetum Flavascens (Yellow oat grass)

Flowers such as Devil’s bit scabious (Succisa pratensis) and Autumnal hawkbit (Scorzoneroides autumnalis) were previously tentatively identified from basal leaves only. This time around they were in flower making it easier to confirm their identity.

This latest set of data will be combined with that from the earlier survey and a final report submitted to the Westonbirt Arboretum management team by the end of September.

The results will be used to decide the initial target grassland type for the restoration of the current car-park, and also inform how the restoration is achieved.

Watch this space for updates!

Useful information
Find out more about the Westonbirt Project
See the images in this blog in more detail on Facebook
June vegetation survey: get the volunteer view