It was once woodland where Harold Godwinson, the last crowned Anglo-Saxon king, rode in pursuit of deer. Over recent decades, the hillside with a panoramic view of London has become arable fields, pony paddocks and a Christmas tree plantation.
But now Harold’s Park, a 200-hectare (500 acre) farm just north of the M25 on the edge of the capital, is to be rewilded and returned to something like the tangled wood pasture once enjoyed by King Harold.
Ancient oak pollards will be allowed to spread their acorns, old hedges will sprout into the fields, field drains will be broken up and ponds restored, helping invertebrates, wildflowers and birds and people rediscover the hillside, which enjoys spectacular views of the London skyline from the Shard to Wembley stadium.
“It’s really very special,” said Ivan de Klee, head of natural capital at Nattergal, the rewilding company that has bought the historic farm between Waltham Abbey and Epping Forest. “The proximity to London is a major attraction. You can see the City, an enormous centre of wealth towering above the rest of the capital. We want to engage those corporates in thinking about nature but we can also see the rest of London, which is by no means wealthy, with children lacking access to nature. We’ll be thinking about how we can engage children with new access to nature as well.”
According to de Klee, the intensively-farmed land is relatively ecologically degraded but still contains wild elements that will speed up nature recovery. “Harold’s Park is ripe for rewilding,” he said. “We were pleased to find an ancient woodland, several ponds, a scattering of smaller fields, and a selection of unkept hedges – all of which will give us a great start to re-establishing natural processes. Notable species such as the crested newt, smooth newt, greenfinch, cuckoo and jay have also been recorded on site, with expectations of many more to follow.”
The last crops on the fields will be harvested this year. Of criticism that rewilding takes up valuable food-producing land, de Klee said that most of the farm was only ploughed up during the second world war and was never efficient food-producing land: the clay soils were relatively unproductive, sodden with water in winter and concrete-hard in summer.
“Much of the farmland around here is producing ponies. Nobody’s eating those for their breakfast,” said de Klee.
Instead of Christmas trees and wheat, the farm’s major new income stream will come from biodiversity net gain (BNG) payments. These rules require all new housing and nationally significant infrastructure to deliver a 10% uplift in biodiversity. If developers cannot be “nature positive” where they are building, they must purchase credits from similar landscapes relatively nearby, where nature will be restored.
The environment secretary, Steve Reed, has spoken in support of BNG, and restoring nature at Harold’s Park will enable new housing elsewhere in Essex.
For local people, there is relief that the farm itself will not become a housing estate. Sophie Cowdy, a local artist, said: “I was filled with joy when I learned Harold’s Park had been purchased for nature restoration. I was concerned that the site would be used for housebuilding and the existing biodiversity on the site would be destroyed.”
It is the third farm bought by Nattergal, which was co-founded by Charlie Burrell, the owner of the rewilded Sussex estate Knepp, with the aim of attracting private investment to nature recovery.
Other potential benefits of rewilding Harold’s Park include purifying water from springs that ultimately feed the Thames and reducing flooding downstream by storing more water in new wetlands.
“We want it to be full of wet flushes of rush and dragonflies,” said de Klee. “Water is life. We’ve spent the last 100 years draining our land to get water out to sea as fast as possible. We want to reverse that process.”
Nattergal plans to open the land to more people, with paid and volunteer jobs to rewild the farm. The barns will become an education hub for schools and corporate partners and a basecamp for volunteers, and could also house local eco-businesses. The land is being surveyed using panoramic cameras and AI to identify all the vegetation and track the nature gains over time.
Peter Schwier, climate tsar for Essex county council, said: “Creating a 500-acre rewilding site in Nazeing aligns with our ambitious target of transforming 30% of Essex into wild and nature areas. We look forward to working with a forward-thinking nature restoration company to support the council’s wider climate action agenda, which will help nature to recover, reduce flooding, lock up carbon, and introduce local people to, and enthuse them about, these important issues.”
Archie Struthers, chief executive of Nattergal, and formerly of BlackRock and Standard Life Aberdeen, said: “Nature is in crisis, and the UK is not currently on track to meet its 30% by 2030 nature targets. With investment from the private sector and the sale of BNG units, we can scale our operation and ultimately our nature recovery impact.”
