The Wild Side Of Horton

It’s February and spring is just around the corner, says Sue Bradley, who ventures south to find out the wild side of Horton and meets an award-winning volunteer

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It’s not unusual for people coming across the Cotswolds village of Horton to feel a sense of déjà vu, particularly if they’ve followed TV dramas such as Wolf Hall, Poldark or The Living and the Dead.

That’s because scenes for all these series were filmed at Horton Court, an historic manor house now looked after by the National Trust and used as a holiday property.

The building, which has a history stretching back to 1185, overlooks mature woodland and can be glimpsed from the Cotswolds Way national trail.

Other wildlife-rich parts of the village include the area around the parish church of St James the Elder, with its closed churchyard managed to encourage biodiversity. Here the grass is partly cut at the beginning of the summer, and again in the autumn using a scythe. This management plan encourages a wide variety of grasses and wild flowers that look beautiful and help to keep the ecosystem ticking.