Farnham town mayor Cllr George Murray hosted a thank you party in the Farnham Town Council chamber for all the property owners, speakers and volunteers involved with Farnham's Heritage Open Days festival held last September.

Plans are being made for this year's festival, which will be held between September 11 and 20. A brochure featuring all the events will be published in July.

Ropley Horticultural Society has published its programme for 2026.

It generally meets at 7.45pm on the last Monday of the month at Ropley Parish Hall in Vicarage Lane, with an invited speaker.

Annual membership is £10, which includes free entry and refreshments for all standard meetings. Non-members are welcome for a fee of £5, which includes refreshments.

The society also holds spring and summer shows, and organises social outings.

It will host its spring show at the parish hall on March 21 at 2.30pm.

There will be displays of flowers and produce, floral art, cookery, design and create, and children’s classes.

Visitors can enjoy tea and home-made cakes before admiring the colourful displays, and there will be a raffle. Entry and parking are free.

Amanda Gomersall will give a talk entitled From Weeds to National Garden Competition Winner at the parish hall on March 30 at 7.45pm.

Barry Newman will share Vegetable Growing Ideas in his talk at the parish hall on April 27 at 7.45pm.

The society will be holding a plant sale as part of the Ropley Pram Race event at Ropley Recreation Ground in Vicarage Lane on May 25 at 10am. There will be lots of other stalls and activities. Parking is free.

Martina Christopher will give a talk entitled Propagation at the parish hall on June 29 at 7.45pm.

The society will hold its annual sweet pea competition at the parish hall on July 27 at 7.45pm. Kate Green will give a talk entitled Petworth Community Garden.

Its summer show will be in the parish hall on August 8 at 2.30pm. There will be vegetables and fruit, flowers, floral art, eggs, photography and cookery classes, plus children’s classes for design and create, grow and cookery. There will be refreshments and a raffle. Entry and parking are free.

Claire Mitchell will give a talk entitled Gardening for Wildlife without being too Messy at the parish hall on September 28 at 7.45pm.

Martyn Cox will tell members how to grow Seasonal Plants with Impact at the parish hall on October 26 at 7.45pm.

Mince pies and mulled wine will be on offer at the Christmas meeting in the parish hall on November 30 at 7.45pm. Suren Ala will give a talk entitled Persian Gardens.

The year’s programme will conclude in early 2027 with the annual general meeting, followed by a talk entitled Snowdrops from Pauline Weeks, in the parish hall on January 25 at 7.45pm.

For more information call Jill on 01962 772425.

William Selborne, the Earl of Selborne, gave a presentation and talk on the Selborne Landscape Partnership on February 21.

He entertained a large audience at Blackmoor Village Hall with fascinating slides and facts about the future of wildlife in the parish.

Revd Amanda Sim introduced the evening with humour and stories of extensive quality sampling of the excellent ciders produced by Blackmoor Estate, aided by living close to the Tap Room.

William is patron of the Friends of St Matthew’s charity and the fifth generation of his family to own and steward the Blackmoor Estate. The church and community deeply appreciate his support.

Using a PowerPoint slide presentation, William clearly explained the scale of the project covering land, livelihood and wildlife.

He worked in Zimbabwe in the 1990s on smallholder agriculture across boundaries to benefit local communities and returned to Blackmoor Estate to transfer some of the learning from that time.

The wildlife needed safe corridors to move from one area to another, otherwise they would be isolated - which would put the smallholders and farmers under pressure to protect their crops.

William introduced the talk with a slide showing giant bird feeder buckets that were filled with miscellaneous seeds - partly from the estate, with others bought in - designed to help birds living on the edge get through winter and spring.

The partnership has identified 26 species not known to Gilbert White. Selborne was very much part of his parish and he would be able to recognise the farm landscape as it currently is, apart from the absence of hops.

From being the third largest hop-producing area, the Hogs Back is now the only location that continues to grow them.

In 1924 William’s great-great-grandfather saw the extensive orchards of apples and pears in Kent, and as the soils were similar he decided to start growing the fruits and establishing a nursery for sales and delivery by train - now also being done online. Ten years ago, cherries were added to the range.

In a 1.5-mile distance, the soils go from chalk at Selborne to upper greensand on the hill, descending to heavy clay and then sand. This is fabulous for wildlife, especially as the majority of Hampshire is on chalk land.

The farm and partnership includes numerous sheep, beef at Hatchmoor, lavender and sparkling wine. The estate used to grow grass to make hay for the army horses billeted in the area, and there has been a return to biofuel with the recent planting and harvest of miscanthus elephant grass, which is burned for electricity generation in Norfolk.

Galley Hill now has an orchid-rich meadow which has taken ten years to mature in its current state - taking it out of arable use to recreate the chalk land meadow. It meant experimenting with different seeds and including some targeted grazing plus newly planted blackthorn hedges, and is an important link to the two adjacent nature reserves.

William and neighbouring Kate Faulkner from Norton Farm set up a farmer conservation scheme in the area with the aim of getting farmers in the broader landscape to begin working in a farmer cluster, working together with agreed objectives in a national bottom-up process.

Many people signed up for the Selborne Landscape Partnership in its first year, giving an area of 13,591 acres to work with from Selborne to Greatham. The area now spreads from Alton to Liss Forest and the tenth anniversary of this partnership was recently celebrated at Rotherfield Park.

In January 2016 environment secretary Liz Truss visited the Selborne Land Partnership and was fascinated about what the farmers were achieving collectively.

The group’s objectives are to spread its message and increase understanding and awareness.

They include a co-ordinated approach to wildlife, spreading species from designated nature reserves, introducing nature-friendly farming practices, collecting regular wildlife data for conservation work, improving soil quality and health, improving air and water quality and reducing soil erosion, sharing knowledge and expertise, meetings and training, and providing education, outreach and positive public relations for farming and wildlife.

It was explained that the monitoring of owl nest boxes required licences. These boxes are mounted on houses, trees, barns and high up on poles - the latter are very popular.

This assistance has made a huge difference for the owls, with approximately 60 boxes from Alton to Greatham, ideally at least 550 yards apart to allow for territorial considerations - males tend to range over more than three miles.

The boxes are checked every year and the owlets are ringed. In addition, a seven-yard margin of grass is left across fields for the use of owls, voles and shrews, and there are now 93 miles of these margins in the partnership.

Data from 2017 to 2025 showed a large increase in the amount of barn owls breeding in the nesting boxes, but the wet ending of 2025 showed a substantial drop in the pairs with broods and the number of chicks, but these are likely to bounce back. Owls hate hunting in the wet as their feathers are not very waterproof.

Kestrels did well in 2025, with tree boxes from the Hawk Conservancy and the South Downs National Park ProNature Fund and private donors providing barn boxes. An Egyptian goose was caught on camera in one.

Friends of St Matthew’s Church chair Jilly Prideaux thanked William with boxes of Hampshire chocolates and a big hug. Special thanks were also given by Malcolm Cooper to the donors of the evening’s refreshments - William for the apple and pear juices, Penny Holroyd of Oakhanger Vineyard for the excellent white and rose wines, Clare Bevell for overseeing the food preparation, and various members of the church who had volunteered to help with the evening.

The event was arranged by the Friends, a charity which supports the church with the cost of repairs and maintenance. Approximately £1,500 was raised via ticket donations and an excellent raffle, with a hot finger buffet and a licensed bar available for refreshments. It was all about farmers working together for wildlife.

For more information visit www.Selbornelandscapepartnership.org.uk

Debbie Matthias