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Coppice field has been managed as grazing land for over eight centuries. First as part of the Duffield Frith, a deer park set up by de Ferrers family in the 12th century. Following the rebellion of 1266, Duffield Frith was confiscated and given to the Earl of Lancaster, the second son of Henry III. The demise of the deer park in the 16th century, led to its eventual sale by King Charles I to the Melbourne family who were Lords of the Manor of Belper until 1880. The use of Coppice Field changed from grazing pregnant does and young deer to grazing cattle principally cows until 1985.

For the first ten years, the grass was short enough for the local children to play on. Since then the grass has grown into tussocks. The tussocks making it very difficult to walk on, let alone play on.

In the last ten years a number of self set oak trees have grown in the field, and if the neglect had continued, the whole field would have become an extension to the woodland on the other side of the brook. Had this been allowed to happened the grass, and the few wildflowers that managed to survive in the grass would have died out due to the trees depriving them of sunlight.

1) Preparing the experimental plots

7th September 2006

The first job is to cut the very rough course grass using a brush cutter. The person learning to operating the brush cutter was one of a group of four young people on a six month secondment to Groundwork under the governments ‘Sure

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