In 1988, a few years before ‘rewilding’ was coined, and decades before it took root, a farmer in deepest Bedfordshire took the unusual decision to stop farming his 377 acres. Ever since, Strawberry Hill, an ordinary slice of gently rolling countryside hiding between the A1, A6 and A14, has been left alone – no ploughing, cutting or pesticide-spraying. What’s emerged is something extraordinary – a new (or old) English Arcadia. I took a midsummer walk there to experience its magic. Bedfordshire is disparaged as the nadir of our intensively farmed, nature-denuded countryside. Look on a map and it appears dominated by busy roads and sprawling suburban towns. But as soon as I left the A14, I found myself bumping on to rutted country lanes, traversing a somnolent, almost traffic-free landscape of sweeping arable fields, interspersed with woodlands and rough meadows, beside tributaries of the Great Ouse. Strawberry Hill encompasses a...
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