A Dairy farm gone wild
Taking a walk is the best way to experience a radical experiment being wrought upon the West Sussex Weald. Wander north- west from the village of Dial Post, and the orderly patchwork of well-hedged pasture and wheat becomes a scene of ruination. Fields are waist-high with rank weeds – thistles, ragwort, clovers – and rapidly succumbing to scrubby hawthorn and billowing, silver-green sallow. Hedges march into the elds like an invading army. Suckers of blackthorn expand each hedge width to eight metres, or more. Under my feet sprout baby oaks with leaves of tender green and red. In the distance, hefty Tamworth pigs roam free, like rugby forwards rendered horizontal. This is Knepp Wildlands, and its bewildering scene of dereliction is unlike anything I’ve seen before in lowland England. But this part of the Weald looked similar within some lifetimes. When Charlie Burrell inherited the 3,500-acre Knepp estate, it was...
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