Wallington’s Green Recovery

What is the Green Recovery Challenge Fund? 

The Green Recovery Challenge Fund is a competitive short-term fund to kickstart the process of nature recovery, address the climate crisis and help create and retain thousands of green jobs.  

The £40 million fund has been developed by Defra and its arm’s-length bodies, including Natural England, Forestry Commission and Environment Agency. The National Lottery Heritage Fund is distributing and monitoring this government money. 

The 'Historic Landscapes' programme has been awarded £3.85 million by Defra as part of the Green Recovery Challenge Fund. The funding will kickstart a programme of work, worth over £4.7 million, to enhance nature and combat the effects of climate change in five of the most significant historic landscapes in our care.  

Achieving a Green Recovery: The Living Hart Burn project  

Through the Historic Landscapes programme, Wallington has benefited from over £800,000 of funding. Centred in the Hart Burn Catchment, these vital funds have allowed us to undertake major river enhancements works including fencing and significant hedgerow and woodland creation, enabling habitat and species restoration.  

The work will see significant habitat gains, leading to increased nature connectivity and enhanced environmental farming practices. With this fund, over the last year we have planted 10.1km of hedgerows and 75,000 trees and restore 50km of waterways along the river corridors that will enable natural processes to prevail. 

The ambition over the next 50 years, is to work with our partners to create rich and healthy spaces for nature, and in doing so reverse the decline in wildlife and their habitats. We are working to create places where people and nature can thrive together.   

We’ll also be widening access to different parts of the estate – whether you’re walking or cycling – with a new network of routes. We’re excited to see the positive impact this will have on the health and wellbeing of all our visitors, as well as the local community. 

Through the Green Recovery Challenge Fund, we were pleased to welcome two apprentice Rangers – Rosie and Nick – who joined the Wallington team back in March 2021. You may well see them on your visit, so do stop to say hello. Groups at the West End Refugee Service have also been learning about woodland management and how to identify the species that live at Wallington.  

Healing Wallington from climate harm

Since Wallington came into our care, we've worked to restore damage caused by intensive land management and the increased demand for forestry and food production, which have affected biodiversity, reduced water quality and degraded peat soils. These problems have been magnified by the climate crisis and these precious habitats have little resilience to adapt to extreme weather. 

In November 2021, Wallington's tree population was devastated by Storm Arwen. Winds of up to 98mph tore through the region and destroyed 40 hectares of trees. Among those lost were a 250-year-old oak, beech trees planted by Walter Calverley Blackett (who bought Wallington in 1688) and larch trees given to the estate in 1738 by the Duke of Atholl.

We're working with the Great Northumberland Forest project, run by Northumberland County Council, to replace lost trees and save veteran trees for future generations. To date, 75,000 trees have been planted, creating 12 hectares of new deciduous woodland and more than 10km of hedgerow. Peat bogs, which lock in carbon, are also being restored.