‘A force for everything he represented’: Ronald Blythe’s home to become nature reserve

Parts of Bottengoms date back to the 15th century and its garden is home to badgers, hornets and the occasional singing nightingale. Photograph: Martin Godwin/The Guardian

Sitting in the folds of the Essex countryside at the end of a sunken lane, the modest home of writer Ronald Blythe is to become an unlikely nature reserve.

When he died in 2023 at the age of 100 the acclaimed author of Akenfield, a classic account of rapidly changing rural life in the 1960s, left his ancient farmhouse to Essex Wildlife Trust.